after the reception

In corners, when the party tent folds,
there you’ll find me. I promised.
We droned earlier, when spotlights dove
into glossed lips and walmart earrings;
form show and dance, elegant pathetic —
all while we revered one unvoiced howl

which brooked no pain, no ten dollar merlot;
singular, it blurred me twice a minute —
but shook nowhere. Rooms rocked and headached.
But stars grew when the floodlights died —
it sparked here, you see, by this stream
near the bench behind the potato peels.

Come, sit, throw stones at caveman fears
of breaking sticks and winds and basilisks.
Your words will see roses, cobwebs and beetles.
We’ll set a sunrise fuse, spike the dewdrop punch,
and sing two counterpoints of dark days
two musics lifting wherever one drones.

You’ll leave south, i’ll leave north.
Songs will dampen out, waves on strings.
Memory can quake when left alone.
So here, learn my baritone, write your halftenor
hear the howl, hear the streams, hear me,
and try deeper.