Crab grass hard on my feet,
want my goddamn bluegrass back,
want the ditch where it feels
like my grandfather is buried, face emerging
sallow and sweet, leathery and painted over
in the blurred inks of just-gone,
though I know
he’s sacked out beneath a granite tooth,
don’t know if that’s where I want to go.

The willows moan
in moody low melodies of defeat; I get tired tired, tired
with dirt in the hollows beneath my eyes,
my mouth open and my arms in the bluegrass knowing
there is much you love
more than honesty.

Evening has shipped in,
smooth shards of blue susurring
into the clefts between the cold-off foothills,
washing down the moonward side
of the blue bluegrass, goddamn bluegrass,
feel you smiling blithely, I say,
this what happen
when fools look deep at each other,
think they see mirrors.

Name me a mirror that din’t lie:
closest I get is the burnished cheeks
of flooded rice fields, and all they showed me
was skies dragged down by the sagging
chins of clouds.
that’s how I know
they din’t lie.
I get tired, tired.
Gimme my goddamn bluegrass.