false cognates

ellen lost her little dachshund
burrowed under the fence, up and left of his own volition
everything spilling out from that moment
her vow of celibacy
blank eyes blanket statements
the twins the tennessee commune with
the wild cows and the washed out road
the needy dogs the one in heat
the philosopher husband, the
sweet cold spring in a hollow of cotton mouths
me a question mark and a vision
of earth of basalt energy and loamy lines

flowing back to

the thick black spool of suwannee

the whooping cranes, the cypress knees, 

flat and ascendant spanse of prairie

i want to live backward forward and laterally

careful cleft of a life lived in two halves

before and before

after after

look i don't have a single answer and

i didn’t love any more then or 

any less now

like anything, an acquiescence

crown molding spirit to ribcage

i think to be honest but spill out past praise

but then is the pressure point of praise not something

altogether human

enrapt, fuming

i'm not sure when ever
i'll hug rob who for months on end lugged
around a taxidermied lynx named wilhemina
how you had to ask any questions to rob through wilhemina
and wait for her to answer, until he traded her to someone
on craigslist for a homehewn mandolin and a fistful of spliffs