October

What you could not help
is a long list
that rain spells
against safety glass
near shores of inland seas
ripe with engines
idled over whiskey-proof nights.

You threw chains
over them
and wondered at what home
might await you at the end.

What good was that?

Strangers
crouching
under weeping
leaves;

ballet
of switch-throws

and horizons
low as
your great-grandfather's
deathbed.

What good?

The space between
the curtain
and the floor;

The storm-flattened
cornstalks.

The totems
that the blade drags with it
over whiskers.