Murder at midnight.
Scarlet taillights drape
a bloody sheet over
the Oldsmobile’s
cold, green skin.
Undercover crickets
in the foggy pasture,
pulse-scream
like tinnitus in
the night’s ear.
Haggard men hoarding
hate like rare coins,
break for gasoline
then churn up
dust from bald tires.
Tomorrow at the bank,
the agency, the classroom,
the factory, the church
and the precinct
they will call
Jesus a friend.
— © Rick Baldwin
The scant, gray room
Where you forced me to live
Me, like a fox
Silken, amber fur
With hungry teeth
I imagined escaping you
That cool, spring morning
In our Swiss train station
Your heels knocking in echo
And I afraid of the machinery
You asked, “Why do we do
The things we do?”
I kissed your nose
Like tasting a hen
I gave my ticket to a boy
He boarded without bags
My gloves felt too tight
Black, like your hair
And smelling of blood
— © Rick Baldwin
He was born
desert frost,
a Kansas avalanche;
an impossibility
in her
life
posing as savage
fantasy
they both carried
under their
skin
like a virus fiend.
— © Rick Baldwin
