EYES OF SMALL ANIMALS
Honestly with regards to the creatures of the valley
I feel ashamed can’t look them in the eye
inside which is violet fog (pulled along, rustling)
and kindness, placed into the eternal interrogation that is
cowardice. When the twilight follows me back to the stone house
they emerge from their many secret places
create me and wait for this wrinkled, moist,
tree-barked man to be supplanted by a steadier messenger.
Even if I hide myself in books, which open to me conveniently
I know they’ll still peek out from the white spaces in words
watch me and mutter about the humiliations they’ll suffer, the dirt.
Yeah when my teeth loosen and drop out one by one from age
I will still remember all of this steadfastly
and with my soul I’ll answer the endless accumulation of innocence