I am bringing a piece of paper, a pen and a carrier
pigeon with me so you can write an eye-witness
account and launch it into the night
like fortune’s goat: a set of false teeth

soaking in a glass, the Jonah in my belly
and a heart ordered from a catalogue
of hand-me-downs. Think of the mouth as a formula
perched in the sky, a weathered loon wide open

in the fuddled weeds, and think of the bruise
along my back as a wall through Berlin. See
that trail in the snow and the uncomfortable shoes:
that’s me dancing through a dog year, that’s me

taking the long way here, a pheasant
shrinking away into bones, a rigid complication
outlined in a self-help book, a blossom
ready to fall from a tree along a lamp-lit boulevard.



©2007 by Frank Matagrano