A Man Called After Dark

A Man Called After Dark

I.

He crosses night — a green of wild antenna fireweed and shadscale

calling me through television static his name is After Dark

he calls to me with the sounds of wet alligator juniper

tells me my name with the beak break of a crow cocking its head to the south

the dirt beneath has teeth long leadplant and saltbush circuits of root and stem gnarled from the mouth

II.

the man has mercury in his name — his head sky thick not yet cloud or rain

his skull is a shelf for white candles an unlocked gun box

a half full fifth of dark matter a late evening gnat sung sweet as dark soil and wolftail

his frame mountaintops the meadow sleepgrass as he carries into his pit

the smoke of belt burn and nectarines and me — I will learn to love him

so erosive it eats through canyons like pink water

III.

the field stands taller when he turns key to engine — he tells me he dances

too many sorrows out the open windows of train cars in temples

jackrabbits ash field mottle at the hem sown with a sunken backroad

of flesh and hillslope — he drives off dusts the horizon

as if chancel as if sunrise as if all of it — all its beauty

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