INTERVIEW WITH A GRAVEDIGGER BENEATH A ONE-CROW TREE.

He ain’t very bird brain, what? I aimed

the barrel of my shovel at him: he could figure.

A shovel don’t fire no bullets. Up there

cackling ain’t the right word but tore the sky in half.

Racket like gulps of liquor lubricating a throaty laugh.

Aw! Aw! Aw! (Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.)

Then I got a sixty-watter over the noodle. I’d been

digging six feet down all day, so I dug a little grave, what?

I caught the crow’s eye. The crow caught mine.

Slowly, I led the crow’s vision to the little grave.

He could count: six inches deep, what?

Looking into his black mask I could understand

a thousand years of—the necessity of—mob action.

Then he was a whirly scarf banking away, quiet.


for 2015 NaPoWriMo sonnet #12: Interview with Gazongo the Exotic Clown
for 2015 NaPoWriMo sonnet #14: Interview with a Pedestrian at a 4-Way Stop