When the pickup truck, with its side mirror,
almost took out my arm, the driver’s grin

reflected back; it was just a horror

show that was never going to happen,
don’t protest, don’t bother with the police

for my benefit, he gave me a smile—

he too was startled, redness in his face—
when I thought I was going, a short while,

to get myself killed: it wasn’t anger

when he bared his teeth, as if to caution
calm down, all good, no one died, ni[ght, neighbor]—

no sense getting all pissed, the commotion

of the past is the past; I was so dim,
he never saw me—of course, I saw him.

                        Might night right sight?
                                                —Andrew Joron

The first thing she did after we blindfolded her
and turned her in circles by her shoulders

was lunge
for where she thought her target hung

and hit tree trunk instead, with one strike
against it split the stick

in half to jagged dagger
in her

fists. The donkey gently swayed
within reach, barely grazed

and staring straight ahead with the conviction
inherent to its kind at the horizon

that a gaze
implies,

paper mane fluttering in the breeze of a near miss,
belly ballasted with melting chocolate kisses,

drawn grin belying its
thingness, rictus

of ritual and craft. She's grinning
too, and laughing, regaining

her balance,
planting her feet in a samurai stance.

She brandishes her splinter.
There's no harm in letting her

take another turn
without turning

her around again.
We think we know how this ends,

how good it feels to play at this,
violence and darkness,

the beast
that harbors something sweet.

I rose at the dead of night,
     And went to the lattice alone
To look for my Mother’s ghost
     Where the ghostly moonlight shone.

My friends had failed one by one,
     Middle-aged, young, and old,
Till the ghosts were warmer to me
     Than my friends that had grown cold.

I looked and I saw the ghosts
     Dotting plain and mound:
They stood in the blank moonlight,
     But no shadow lay on the ground:
They spoke without a voice
     And they leaped without a sound.

I called: ‘O my Mother dear,’—
     I sobbed: ‘O my Mother kind,
Make a lonely bed for me
     And shelter it from the wind.

‘Tell the others not to come
     To see me night or day:
But I need not tell my friends
     To be sure to keep away.’

My Mother raised her eyes,
     They were blank and could not see:
Yet they held me with their stare
     While they seemed to look at me.

She opened her mouth and spoke;
     I could not hear a word,
While my flesh crept on my bones
     And every hair was stirred.

She knew that I could not hear
     The message that she told
Whether I had long to wait
     Or soon should sleep in the mould:
I saw her toss her shadowless hair
     And wring her hands in the cold.

I strained to catch her words,
     And she strained to make me hear;
But never a sound of words
     Fell on my straining ear.

From midnight to the cockcrow
     I kept my watch in pain
While the subtle ghosts grew subtler
     In the sad night on the wane.

From midnight to the cockcrow
     I watched till all were gone,
Some to sleep in the shifting sea
     And some under turf and stone:
Living had failed and dead had failed,
     And I was indeed alone.