Here's To You, Pancake

i watch the fireflies carefully navigate the heavy autumn dusk - stormy blue and seldom green

the warmth taken with it--even the shattered boards logged with cool moisture and pieces of blood and skin cashed for splinters

the grass, grown pale from too many lightning bolts -- reduced to shadows...

...the strange house with no lights - - eyes adjusted and waiting

the sound of footsteps...a single blast from a shotgun and our ears ring for so long that the silence goes unnoticed...

...even now

Listen to that sound? Hear that sound? Getting in an out of trees? That flop-flop sound? Mm, that sound will sure mistake you for turkeys. Listen. Hear that flop-flop. Limbs breaking. Hear that good flop, then? Listening to that gives me the turkey fever. Mm, I wish there were as many turkeys as there are buzzards.

"...you’re all I have, my boy
You are my life, my pride, my joy

I know it’s hard to understand
Why did we ever start?
We’re more like strangers now
Each acting out a part
I have laughed, I have cried
I have lost every game
Taken all I can take..."

day and night...when you aren't here