Black Hood

A yellow school bus passes. All the figures inside are wearing orange jumpsuits, black hoods. This is the fashion. I am not saying this from inside a dream. I found an owl scat on the doorstep: Hair and crushed bone.

In the plaza, an old man suddenly turns, looks back at me. No one he knows. I am a hand that slips on a wet rail; all stairs gone. I am not saying this from inside a dream. I have cut the lines between cause and effect into my skin with the edge of a black aspen leaf.

The man who usually hawks newspapers on the hospital road is handing out stones. I am not saying this from inside a dream. A crushed black snake on the road's shoulder stirs, slips into high grass (Another dead soldier, trying to return). I am not saying this from inside a dream. Drop sage-dust into an open flame, it sparks like gunpowder.