Gary L. McDowell

Lullaby

My always eye on the whore. There’s always a whore

She’s always in the midst of beauty

Respect the devil even in the devil

How many doors have you fallen in love with?

On our backs watching the clouds move
Blue is an idea about distance

Greek for ‘stone blood,’ petrichor: the scent
of rain on dry earth

Reaching, the struggle with shapes
A bird’s nest

A broken picture frame

The argument of fire with fire

Pots strewn hapless in the kitchen

A wake I went to once, long after
everyone left,

the sun and the river and the mother

Boredom punchdrunk in her small torso

I am in need of no thing