Winter Yard

unsettling cysts of dark

grow in the armpits of a fence,

night hobbling across longitudes

to trap sparrows,

their wings quick

to buck the slow attack,

as they see cheetah spots in the moon,

and bend like nuns in chestnut cowls

to steal away,

leaving beer cans like torsos

below the sill of a gargantua,

metals sucking each other's dents

as they await fresh meat;

and an avid dog, eyes like pork,

yapping and chasing its own haunch,

paws like pinwheels

scrounging up a gizzard;

and a cobweb in a slain pail,

forsaken by a lost season -

anything as jovial as a beetle is dead.

only upchucked consumables,

and electrocuted widgets,

and a doll's head, and a beaten wheelbarrow,

and a neckless guitar

with a lewd split waist.                                                                                           printable

                                                                                                                    two other poems by Chris Crittenden