THE GREAT MINK

Makes eyes from his mud-blind
in the river bank as we await,
water-locked to the waist,
courage to submerge
in the flex and tug
of the current. Wink back
and his whole body blinks,
skitters and shrinks
down the throat of his escape hatch,
then slinks back, turtles
to the tunnel mouth all coy and quietly coquette.
Purse perfect and plush, flush
with a false confidence,
our water-weasel wheels rock
to rock in a hurricane of reconnaissance
before pouring his entire contents
—hat-fur, chisel teeth, skin-bag of ancient remedies—
riverward and harrying shore to shore,
a harbinger with a world to warn. 

THE SHOOTER’S CONFESSION

For Wayne Garton

Harnessed to the hydro-pole outside the house,
the Hydro man hung there in the midst of his repair
like a old question I felt compelled to answer.
With the barrel cradled on the rail of the fence,
I took a knee to work my nerve, then drew a bead
and squeezed the trigger. The way I figure, pain
is an electric current transferred person to person,
and the second the pellet left the chamber my read
was certain: he cursed and spit and nursed his shin
and as I ran what hurt hurt me now hurt him.