Sonnet 58


the first thing that an animal does when it enters a new place is
                                                            kill

felt sleep like the edge of some primordial licking fire graze him

in the default just above the surface of the east river
to be waved in the face of a charging bull

a way into the darkness we're all gunning for

where everything has blood on it


there is earth here and space, the diamond


these cliffs are where my friends were


call it coca-cola fog or freak

of need versus what-you-get always the gap but never the

ba dum ba dum ba do, what has become of mister magoo?


i would as soon look up a dress as look up a word

see the green wall and the fluorescent light


amid the rain and sunshine the ghoul

From Vertical Elegies 5 by Sam Truitt. Copyright © 2003 by Sam Truitt. Reprinted by permission of the University of Georgia Press. All rights reserved.