I. <br /> <br />They let me go <br />at night, minus my timepiece, lighter, <br />personal effects. The air is always shaking <br />the same jars of safety pins: cicadas. <br />Song is my recidivism: always <br />I'm abandoning the road to stand <br />(unwatched, unseconded) in someone's <br />field. The stars (that are not mine) <br /> <br />tick fitfully, they always have <br />appointments. Punctual, six-sharp, <br />they are David's; they have lodged in his <br />death tent, have stuck in his mud sleep. Bad luck <br /> <br />leaves me a loan: no company, no katy- <br />did or promissory <br />note or night <br />can last. <br />The air <br />loses its nerve, <br />the old saw its eyeteeth and I <br />my words—my alwaysing and my. <br /> <br /> II. <br /> <br />In hush the repossessors reach <br />the edges of the field. They pass <br /> <br />for shadows, sheep of ambush, animals of <br />permanence. They turn a black beyond returning <br /> <br />and they haunt the sleepless. I don't count, <br />who cannot earn my keep.<br /><br />Heather McHugh<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/debtor-s-prison-road/
