Happy

Blue circles spin
above

thick within
thin, green miles.

Our heels wear well
against clockspin;

against
the wilds
of compasses
confused
with iron
slung hard and
deep into the earth.

Blame bleeds
its shores upward
through the packed wet
of old forest floors

And fills
a tetanus moment,
tipsy in its
silence —

specks and planks
and planks and specks

and
shame rounding
itself against
the sharp folds of curtains
in glassless windows
and the sound of traffic
below;

soft curves
of hard roads
heaving
merciless selves
from dusk-yards
into
the west.

In winter,
we dream of buildings
old, secure: strong
as grace.

They hold themselves up
while buffalo drive themselves
in great thundering herds through
and past
and off
of cliffs.

We are happy,
because we have not been swept away.

By all rights
we should have been,
having been where we have been,
when we should not have been.