Sean Sweeney

we had to stop, dawn broke night’s perfect shell,

far from the road, in ocotillo brush

stacking skid marks while dodging wild pig,

vultures swing high, sing lyre and beer can,

grapefruit night slips away with purple knife

tenderly swaddled in old newspaper

here asphalt sticks like wet toilet paper

all that prickly pear and shotgun shells,

poking around this desert with a knife

too hot now to go ‘round tickling brush

so sit and try not to move if you can

just like a penguin, smart as a pig

river jump, a coarse javelina pig

playing cello, full set, made of paper

some mountain lion, thunder in a can

sky blue hold water, mind grinning shell

wire afternoon, the color of brush

whistling a name, Hot the butter knife

under the sun, doing the twist, the knife

you, born of the same mother, feral pig

ask cosmetically, how far? loaded brush

through a screen, in a thin voice like paper

the devil you know beats a stranger’s hell

domestic as pineapple in a can

knowing the occasion, meaning of, can

commune the red room set the carving knife

there is nothing, but mounds of oyster shell

old world devotion on this rusty pig

rains come and everything’s made of paper

the closer to skin the better the brush

what water left to share is in this can

each direction looks the same on paper

besides, sand ruins the cake, dulls the knife

one who knows, who is, close they say to pig

contented to be once more in a shell

ready in scrub brush to make for great shell

willing with paper to give up the knife

able and I can, never end with pig