There Are Whistles and Heat

There are whistles and heat
and the dryer spinning.
Boys, loose from their cloven feet,
remember
to be merciful. No mother
forgives them.
There is half-light
and a half-step.

The republic of gloves?
A knot of appropriate sweat?

Miles of doubt have been left
on doorsteps.
Peek between the venetian blinds
and you'll see it.

How fleshy the moon is,
its testicles, its pianos,
its exaltation.
It smokes at the hip

against a backdrop of banana trees
spilled up
from a page that will,
at some later date, wander

in the company of pigs and sheep.
A good fit
but filled with amnesia
and a wasted life
in the tropics.

Copyright © 2006 Faye Kicknosway All rights reserved
from Hawai'i Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission