Just After Dawn

Born to bees (they follow the deer trails

down to drink from the rivers).

Born to call the dog Houdini—

Hoo! Yo, ’Dini! 

Born to parlay “First yellow leaves

on the ash trees/Cool breeze up

the backside/Spinach to Popeye.”

Born to Draco, low,

or the lights of town, or home,

or cooking fires off along the mesa—

Lost Horizon in a common poem. 

Born to crows’ eyes

the furnace-red of sunrise,

and a country girl, old mosquito bites

up one arm and down the other.

Born to stand and see

as one of the thugs tees up

marbles from my childhood cache

and drives them in bright smithereens

off over the lower town and the harbor.