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I have been very happy in my desert.
More than you know.
You walk to the end of the street
The earth is a little rounder for an hour.
The faces pilot under the power lines.
The snow has been killing for a week

Ceremoniously the janitor’s clothes
have just tried to waltz.
There’re avoiding what happens when they get older
or something better comes along
We put on our costumes of poems
the stage after the sickness if over
rolls to a stop,
meanwhile you’ve jiggled all these messages

summomed down by the creek
accepted back
The air still has plenty of heat.

The difference matters
because we are too worried about conclusions
This just didn’t happen
No, not in this house
It started in the front row
and against a map of luck,
of occasional measures,
taller grass.

On some nights there is talk
like this. Like the night the dead
drove me to the peace gardens
in Manitoba.