lost on the lam in downtown Dothan ~ Rifka Goldwyn

His nails were the sallowing thickness of furze, 

like beaver teeth curled through the throat of the Gila, 

like sagescrub lolled to obscure or assort all the 

flyaway rays of the sun to a fishtail

braid—his hair, left the umber of bone spurs,

plumbing up mole-gnawed, cinnabar, sixty-grit 

skin; all his thumbprints, scrofulous 

tangrams, testing the restless

wit of a pitiless Percival, groping 

a skull back together with

knock-kneed floss and wry-

necked safety-pins, hesitant 

spittle and Gojo, going the way of the

blue-footed booby caught dusting the

bladder-fat stars from boat-choked Biscayne Bay, bent,

whispering, gruff as a besom beats back the untidied,

crepitant tides, shrill farrows of Mary debrided

from what was the firmament mostly, now, just

chilblained toast come penitent dinner time; yet, 

my grandfather muttered like

Pooh Bear lost on the lam

in downtown Dothan, wore

all his shirts to unspeakable 

softness, cradled two jawless

chihuahuas wherever he strode,

and sang little songs about toddling

song birds—spends his days now

testing the tensile limits of live oaks,

minding a pile of anvils swaddled in half-

sloughed Spanish moss and an unkinked 

Kentucky rifle his 

forebears swore 

had belonged 

to Daniel

Boone 

once—Danny

still out there

somewhere,

somewhere, probing

the border for, farther

than any man dares to see,

through trellising moss, all

the way to shrill farrows of

Mary stretched thinner than

dew along

toddling

river

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