Of Tooth and Claw

You are the wild in me,

a silhouette dancing on the hillcrest

visible only when the lightening crashes

where I once would have cowered from the storm.

Those scratch marks in the dirt

where we got drunk and unleashed ourselves.

Scabs of bark torn

from the trees of your boyhood forest.

The rawness in your voice at daybreak

after screaming yourself to sleep.

You are speeding down empty back roads.

You are shooting out streetlights to make room for stars.

You are the beauty in blood streaming down my skin.

This is love unchained,

all that remains of what is pure.

This is survival

in world of screenglow and numbness.

This is a promise that they will never take our hearts.

We will cling to what is animal.

To fight, to feed,

to prove ourselves strong.

And I will be the rage in you.

I will grab your hand and run,

let stray branches scratch our skin.

I will pull you through night to greet the sun,

dreary eyed and smiling.

Squinch Owl Homeward Bound: Bury Me

smells like autumn, smells like leaves

you don’t know that you’ll rust

It’s a ‘missing Oliver’ kind of day.

Spent the afternoon in the waiting rooms of car repair shops, Bonanza re-runs and those candy machines that might as well be rusting along with everything else. A calendar on every wall. Some tacky mug full of pens nobody uses. I counted four different signs telling me “We’re Sorry, but Our Insurance Does Not Allow Customers in the Garage,” before being asked to come stand under my car to observe the damage. Broken in three places, some number I can’t comprehend. I say: Let me check my funds, I’ll call you tomorrow. And I won’t, but there was nobody else waiting, and that man had a lost battle in his eyes.

The city is stockpiling destruction equipment in the abandoned lots across from our house. Bulldozers and structural collapse trucks tucked away behind chain-link fences. The field where my dog used to run is now held hostage by private property signs. No trespassing. Surveillance. Of course none of this is true. We are under the eyes of busted out streetlights, the parking sign left hanging for decades with its arrow half tilted towards the sky. This is the land of empty threats. They forgot to lock the gate last night. It just swayed quietly, leading to the alley I used to take home every evening, and I wanted to walk down it one more time. I wanted to break into what used to be Kent Hardware and dance around on those green and white checkered floors, to write something beautiful on the walls before they fall: I wish you were here. I wanted to sit in the dark behind dusty storefront windows and watch the cops creep down Water Street. I wanted to explore the newly-abandoned house and pretend I knew it well, to make up a story for all the things they left behind. But I just stood on the sidewalk and thought: this is where we danced in the rain until my feet bled. That was years ago. That was before everyone left. And that was it. 

When desperate for conversation the drunks outside the Gyro will always stop you and want to pet your dog. It usually lasts about five minutes before he starts to bark at someone, and I pull him away, still alone but a little less lonely. 

I started to make this list. I’m sure it will grow.

BEFORE LEAVING:

-Medina Fall Foliage Tour

-Camping

-Finish poetry chapbook

-Find someone to sublease room

-Spend a few days in Cuyahoga Valley National Park

-Pittsburgh, possibly on to Jersey and New York

-Columbus

-Ravenna Balloon A-Fair

-Acquire a new bike and a new knife

-Visit Apple Cabin and Mapleside Farm

-Drive-in

-Last trips to gravel mountain and the railroad bridge

-Drinks and pool at Checkers N’ Trophies