OK.
Sometimes I have trouble turning these pages.
So bear with me.
The next poem is called, A Voice.
It is late, and no moon's out.
I'm alone here in this metal chair--
listening.
My car-- a few yards away with the lights off.
Stars, the river.
The trees face me on the far back with a darkness
older than myself.
Here, this ground I pretended was home.
Like an arm I don't use, never noticing how it waits.
The sky looks big enough for a man to walk through--
discover himself, the holes his body makes.
Cottonwoods I can almost touch lean out at me.
Fear-- my legs rooted in it.
The self-- I won't let go of ever.
An alpha owl, his voice calling out like a rare old coin
left years ago in an attic.
A large one cent piece, green and moldy
in its dark wooden box.
Uncomplaining, like the blind woman who gave it to me.
She said, I was going to be famous someday.
I can hear him--
the alpha owl-- his voice nearer now, calling and calling.