James Dickey

Drunk on the wind in my mouth,
Wringing the handlebar for speed,
Wild to be wreckage forever.

Dust fanned in scraped puffs from the earth
Between his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,
To demonstrate its suppleness
Of veins, as he perfected his role.

I have just come down from my father.
Higher and higher he lies
Above me in a blue light
Shed by a tinted window

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.