THE MUSE
You owe me. Pay up. According to my accounts, you have...

CASUAL FRIEND
Send lies to the people listed below....

THE AWARDS COMMITTEE
This is to notify you that--but what's the use?...

THE WISE
The world could fall to pieces with no notice....

UNCLE AL
A chicken is a touchy creature....

THE OTHERS
Here where we live the lines are down and the surprises build into snowbanks...

DANNY
Dusty Clinton Township kids making paper roosters and snowball...

SAMUEL RENSBERGER
I am your grandfather's grandfather and through my wakeless sleep I dream...

OLD NEIGHBOR
East across low muddy fields and behind the screening trees you can see...

THE WORM COUNCIL
We call your attention to worms. Though sweeping ice age disaster...

THE HERON
I flew in down by the round deep pond behind your house...

WITNESS
I saw the largest moon ever rise huge bright yellow, sailing where it cared to...

BUZZARD

Ten turns above the woods
and then a sliding fall
deep into the breeze.
The buzzard passes shadows
back and forth like a spider
working thread. A web
for all the dead, cast everywhere.
And when she climbs, hauling her
quiet looping steps sunward,
I am pulled towards her rise,
coasting wings fixing my eyes
higher and higher. She must hear,
blown to those altitudes, little things:
breath slowing, the least surge of blood,
the eye straining upward in its socket
to see through the skull.