I don’t know who that was

with river rocks for eyes,

that head of antlers and the grass

of fallow stream banks loose

behind his ears. He never breathed

the exhaust of this actual life

or drove home before sunset,

preferring mayflies at dusk

or scribbling symbols by car light

on the shoulders of gravel roads.

I return there once in a while,

just outside of town, surprised

that even the fields are smaller

than I remember. There are tracks

in the soft earth but none of that beast

with more time ahead of him

than behind, with the night vision

of an owl and all the appetites

of a black bear sow. Our animals

all live short, ill-fated lives.

Thirty years ago a hunger drove

him up over the hills at midnight

to lay down in a city of light.

At dawn he woke from a dream

to his own bloodless legs and arms

and a fluttering in the air he knew

was the unfurling of a paper sun.