the young boy

he spied the young boy in the feral space behind a leaning rotting garage
under an overhang of purple lilac bushes and the stick bough of a disfigured pear tree

rooting in the cool black Midwestern dirt with a flatware tablespoon 
he had ostensibly taken from the silverware drawer in the familys cupboard

the boys back was to him

he was a small boy and peering over his shoulder was not difficult

above the rut the boy gouged was a scroll of toilet paper and on the toilet paper was a bloodied tooth

occasionally the boy spat

where the spittle coiled he could see it was laced with blood

the tooth must be the boys tooth

the boy worked solemnly

he made no noises

the boy set the tablespoon aside and leaned back on his haunches

then he leaned forward and took up the tooth and toilet paper and holding the tooth between his thumb
and index finger he put it in his mouth and seemed to try to replace it from where it came

the tooth fell out of his mouth

the boy picked it up brushed it against his tshirt and laid it back on the toilet paper

then he laid the toilet paper and tooth on the soft pile of dirt he had unearthed and cried

his shoulders shook softly

noiselessly

 

***

with the back of his dirty hands the boy wiped his eyes

he picked up the toilet paper and tooth and taking the tooth between his thumb and index finger again 
he held it for a long moment

then he deliberately wrapped it in the toilet paper

the boy held it up to his mouth and said something into the wrap

he couldnt hear

the boy kissed the wrapped tooth and laid it in the rut he dug

he laid the tablespoon atop it and pulled the loose black dirt over the sacrament with cupped hands

as the small boy rose into a kneel he quietly backed out of the feral sanctuary and strode to a tall elm
and hid behind its trunk to watch

***

soon the young boy emerged

filthy  glum  distracted

he brushed his hands together and brushed the loose dirt from the knees and thighs of his corduroys
briefly he shook like a dog

he stomped his feet unfurled the cuffs in his corduroys and emptied them
then recuffed them

he pulled his tshirt up to where his head disappeared into the shirt under its crewed collar and sullenly wiped his face and eyes

when his head emerged he looked down on his tshirt and slapped and pinched it to shake whatever excess dirt free there was
with a grunt  he acknowledged its filth

the boy looked over his shoulder from where he came

a longing look

he sighed

and with shining eyes he shuffled away

never looking back

1541,  Sunday,  23  12. 12

taking some time off for indecent behavior

post again Monday April 7

theorized

there was a time I devised  really  a bangup watertight dyed-in-blood theory

I dont remember now what it was about

not a fucking clue

but it seemed that night that

deep blue night in the Fall in the Bitterroots lit

by the cold glow from an ivory moon

lazing through cracked windowpanes wood sash no curtains

and strafed by raggedy clouds

I did

that night I figured it all out in pencil

a gnawed yellow nub I fingered with my left

smoking Camel straights with my right

and  yah  with the smell of Jack Daniels in the dirty glass tumbler before me

I theorized

resplendent

rational

methodical

like a proof in Geometry

hypothesis antecedent consequent theorem

A goes onto B goes onto C goes onto D

Bulletproof

Concrete

Seamless

or it seemed that night that deep blue night in the Fall in the Bitterroots

I got hustled out of my room before the sun rose

yanked out from the chair where Id fallen asleep

for not paying what I owed for better than a week

though not without warning without due warning 

fucking passkeys

I thought Id stolen every one they had hanging behind the front desk for my room

so it seemed

I thought I was pretty clever

well

that family had been doing business there for better than a generation

I suppose you get your head around things in a generation

around deadbeats with master keys held elsewhere

three big white boys sharing a brain between them swept in and swept me out

they rifled my duffel bag and tossed it out onto the street after me

it laid crumpled at my boot heels

the sorry bastards even kept the half pack of Camels I hadnt smoked

and yea they kept my scribbled and smudged much-thought-through theory

might have been in lieu of payment or coercion to squeeze me for money later

either made me laugh raucously because it was mine in my head I owned it

I thought I owed it

I thought I had it fire branded and knife etched inside my skull

but try as I may to summons it regurgitate it all I got was bile

I got sick trying to remember it

and to recover from my reversal I had to forget

I forgot it so hard that even when I finally moneyed up logging I didnt go back

it was a sweet clean coherent theory

spun like a spider spins a web

and evidently like a spider when it abandons its web

I went on along my way without giving it another thought

0202,  Twosday,  9  10. 12

I had a moment

while looking up at the moon

parsing the night sky

obliterating the stars

that the steps I sat on

werent there

that the place behind me I called home

wasnt there

and I too

was immaterial

it didnt frighten me

since Vietnam I was long past being frightened by anything

I found the sensation odd

perhaps in a word

otherworldly

I felt like a note

rarely plucked on a harp string

sensitive to the vibrations around it

the scale ascended  

then descended away from it

keen it wasnt going to be played

it was grateful

to be honed in place

then I was returned

I could feel my knee through my pantleg

with my fingers

from where I sat

beneath this hilltop

there was a pale colored shimmering

it erased the street

the houses along it

the cars the curbs

the dogs their barks

the stealthy nocturnal cats

the brush and rosemary and digger pines remained

thin coyotes yipped

deer flanks twitched

the distant infernal hum

of traffic on the 101

desisted

then electrical lights dotted to the horizon

disappeared

an inky blackness oozed

for as far as my eyes could see

in every direction

it didnt frighten me

I was long past being frightened by anything since Vietnam

0042,  Saturday,  14  9. 13