Snakes

He told me once
about his new daughter and how
she tottered all over the place
wanting, very much, to be alive
and how
in the evenings
he went out with his gun and shot snakes.
The snakes he said
were mostly of the poisonous variety.
He said he often drank too much
and that the fury of the gun
brought him back to himself
and his daughter
and the wife he had little time for.

We left him alone
eating awful things
his skin bad
sleeping in a friends house

I should have asked
on behalf of the snakes
poisonous and otherwise
that were here before your child
and will be here after too
and are vital and lovely
in a multitude of ways
is it not possible to find
some other route
to that best
and sometimes worst
part of yourself

Adrift (2011)

ADRIFT, The Always Outsider is a series of eleven poems inspired by the friendship between the singer / songwriter Larry Jon Wilson and Jeb Loy Nichols. 32 pages, hand bound and signed.