Darcy Shargo

Alter Ego

When I go out, it had better sound

like a murder of crows— those loud clanging bastards

in my dooryard making a ruckus, unafraid to let go of safety.

It better be unabashed as my mutt in his joy crossing a mud-caked field

at dusk-edge, sky oozing pink that matches his perfect tongue.

It should end like all that raises hair along the back of the neck: roadkill, a song that transports you to seventeen,

bliss-filled in the front seat of a red pickup, fingers tracing sundry names for summer

into wind, which lifts those names,

and each dwindling possibility,

transmogrifying them to dust.

Things to Say Only to the Dusk

My lover’s mouth has become burial ground for stargazers like me. If I had my way, I would be dead already — matter darting back through space and careening earthward, landing in his throat that vibrates as though a moth warming for flight. How could I have seen the way things would go, having started this whole affair on the prairie, where land is stitched straight to the heavens, as though a story that cannot be unwritten? The fairytale will always be: summer nights when wind carried a concerto of cornstalks, crickets, and an intergalactic buzz between two kids who know no better than to see each other as sweet fruit to peel, break, chew, and swallow. It has been a long time since he and I wore these landscapes together. A long time we’ve wintered and watched the weather, searching skies for assemblages that create sense. But he has eaten all light that might be used in cases of emergency, such as the coming twilight or rot settling into old bones.

Sonnet #1

Of late we have been mute as bells without a tongue,

and also have become serious as bombs—

or picked-at scabs that cover slick pink sheen, stung

by our own attention deficits, those psalms

of puzzlement and grief. We’ve flaked

in the midst of making magic, and now

are consigned to search for flames escaped

from each of our shirt pockets, blown

open like fields post-raid, laid moon-bare and alone.

Who can come to witness how this quiet

travels amid two paired animals so keen injure to the bone?

Who can travel in reverse, to our world before it was pure riot?

The field is empty and waits for whatever violence comes;

Let’s fill it instead with new psalms.

Darcy Shargo is a non profit administrator and mother of many, many people.

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