Returning the Ghost

After the glass of crashing
I bleed into the fields:

water chewing at itself
under icy lids, houses gathering

their cloudy bulks, shouts
of dogs falling over the ridge

with sudden weight,
night turning like a spear

in its own pulsing gut
and the sound that waited:

swish and rasp of ducks
in the bent corn behind me,

flapping themselves red,
nudging down into my lungs,

the air folding us shut
like a blade.

Copyright © 2005 F. Daniel Rzicznek All rights reserved
from Elixir
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission