Jim Harrison

He Halts. He Haw. Plummets.
The snake in the river is belly-up
diamond head caught in crotch of branch,
length wavering yellow with force of water.
Who strangles as this taste of present ?
Numen of walking and sleep, knees of snow
as the shark's backbone is gristle.
And if my sister hadn't died in an auto wreck
and had been taken by the injuns
I would have had something to do :
go into the mountains and get her back.

Miranda, I have proof that when people die
they become birds. And I've lost
my chance to go to sea or become a cowboy.
Age narrows me to this window and its
three-week snow. This is Russia and I a clerk.
Miranda throws herself from the window,
the icon clutched to her breasts,
into the snow, over and over.

(...)

I want to be told a children's story
that wil stick.
I'm sorry I won't settle for less.
Some core of final delight.
In the funeral parlor my limbs
are so heavy I can't rise.
This isn't me in this nest of silk
but a relative bearing my face and name.
I still wanted to become a cowboy
or bring peace to the Middle East.
This isn't me. I saw Christ this summer
rising over the Absaroka Range.
Of course I was drunk.
I carry my vices to the wilderness.
That faintly blue person there among
the nastrurtiums, among crooning relatives
and weeping wife, however, isn't me.

(...)

— In Interims : outlyer