I bookend the summer with dreams, when I wake
it is fall, the beating heart of it. You have two hands
on the wheel, a long highway, praise songs
on the radio. Coming dark draws back from headlights: a wave 
sucked back to sea. 

Not far off four crosses in a field embraced by a tiny fence, a plot 
staked by four sister-ghosts. Measles, or smallpox. They died all in one day. 
They sleep deep, near where the overpass curves like a smile, where some boys in a  truck smashed themselves to death one night
Moth wings beating to an open flame, flames gilding the moment of departure, 

one such place of departure a fifth marked white cross, 
near where the bird hung dead by its feet
from a charred branch. I saw it one day last summer, walking the fields to you,
lightning-struck; recoiled from its flipped gaze, its forever final view of earth. 

Many things die. I wonder why we shouldn’t be some of them.
The twisting of a song, the musty cab
of a fast-tracked pickup. Fall nights round here, there is
always smoke from an outdoor fire. Always the kiss of a cigarette
drawn into your lungs, the glory of leaves on fire. Overhead the scorch of stars. 

Many things burn. I wonder why I
shouldn’t be one of them.