Box, box, box, box, box, block end
at sharp right, and box, box, box,
continuing down to the salt house,
the knacker’s yard, the one rum house
big as an Alaskan rig; just enough room
to get boiled in gin.
When corralled
the people of this fishing town
do more damage than bucks
in a corn field.
Eat grain, rack horns,
spend too much time staring
across the faces of what had been all field
at one time. Buck thistle. Moot
flower, a thyme that grew up in purple
curls, like the hair of clown children
that stop in the square every fall
for harvest fest. The only thing left
of the harvest is the celebration.
Men, when wild is removed for them
become restless, and make wild trouble,
knuckles, bottles, the midnight rape
of a wife too full of grief to know
she drinks with those who grow wild
because they grow no beards,
grow no food, hunt no meat.
