Puncture Wounds (zuihitsu)
Note: Some lines from this poem were harvested from “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash

Kevin cut himself washing dishes, badly, his knuckle punching through a pint glass, slicing a triangle of skin sliding down the drain. How bad is it? I saw white, heaved. Shoving a mess of paper towels against the bright blood, grabbed my keys, swallowing vomit hard out the door.


A pack of crows is called a murder.


Go tell that long-tongued liar.
Go and tell that midnight rider.


Winter in Iowa a painting of a black-and-white photograph of a Victorian house, haunted. Stark bare trees dark grey against the lighter clouds.


The sounds of crows being tortured pierced the freezing night as we left the emergency room: shrill, long aching calls, cawing like cats or monkeys against unseen violence. My hands shook without gloves as I read to him the symptoms of infection: tell me if you feel feverish.


I thought I heard the shuffle of the angels’ feet.


Along I-35 South to Des Moines, snow pools, revealing bumps and curves I couldn’t see in summer.


Two crows picking at the flat body of a road-killed squirrel, its matted grey-orange coat speckled with blood dry and dull. The sharp white of a protruding tendon or bone. I cock my head at the silhouette crows waiting in the branches above me. Keep walking.


I pass a billboard of the crucifixion: “Jesus, the ONLY way to God.” Blood leaks out around metal nails hammered into the delicate wrists.


Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news.