by Jeff Knight

On the last page of the first chapter
she sank to the occasion like a sutra
in translation, divorced from laughter.
A St. Bernard in a red bandanna
made her think of brandy kegs and snow,
as she sat reading on her cotton blanket
at the park, feeling the loneliness grow
green as precious stones, tight as a closed throat.
She felt like matter shifting from phase
to phase, a choirgirl chanting peyote
rhymes, a dancing bird in a paper cage,
lesser scavengers snagging scraps from Coyote,
clever as time's seamstress, with the future
still there to be stitched, suture by suture.