RosAnna no longer cried,
Her tears once sprouted roses,
White candles appeared,
Wherever they fell,
The last time she cried was at the edge of the sea,
A pure white beach at dawn,
A Nationalle moved onto the beach,
She watched his movements through the blurred scope
of her Chinese rifle,
From her post high in the jungle palms,
He turned to scan the jungle,
The trigger pulled,
The bullet passed through his breast pocket,
Split the stem of a dried rose,
Passed through to lodge in the shell of a hermit crab,
The crab too died instantly,
The Nationalle's last thoughts were of his beloved RosAnna,
Somewhere out in that dark, lonely jungle,
Blood, sea, final tears
 

The Shadow of a Raven

Forty cases of wind chimes
Covered me and my box of parrots
The old man that lives within me 
Perched on the tailgate, smoking
I fell asleep to the whine of the old truck's tires
Silky-cool liquids poured over my skin
No more fields of stones, 
No more too-small ears of corn
Inside my body great flocks of swallows
Sang and dived into me
Coming and going
Carried off the roots and insects
Of my life in Chiapas
Carried off the tiny bones 
Of the woman who had punctured my veins
Shadows knocked over a lantern
Gathered close by, waited
For the track of the sun being left behind
Night dampened my clothes
I blended with the darkness
An uncomforted widower, a raven
Leaving too late a dead world