The dog was long dead, but its eyes still looked

owlish at me. Puddled there

in cartoon red, mites spelunked across it, the color

& character of tobacco drool. Midwinter, I was thicketed

in severe material, hardly able to articulate

my arms & legs. But Toy had stripped down

to suet, trying to haggle it

alive. Swivelnecked, face flushed carbide, he made urgent

sounds at me. It didn’t matter. Words could be spoken

loud as you pleased but the wind

was a felon, pocketed them. I went & hunkered over him. Effort

& wispy genetics had tonsured his hair. Only three past

the hour of thin meridian, & already the light

was pigeoning away. A chloroformed scene. Above, buzzards

saddled the day’s last vividry, the clouds

novicely crocheted. Toy’s head

was sumped down in his collar

turtlewise. Whoever owns up to this

is galactically fucked. His voice was like rustling

through tissue paper. I could see February

sharding all over him, his shoulders

funnel-caked. Another bluster & his crouch gave out

& he was on his ass in the snow & froth, severed

umbilicus.

…

I know it was one of those lard-asses from up Hemp Patch, Toy said. They’re still

sore about them chickenfights. He was overtop the firepit. In it he flinted

a wagging bouquet of flame. They did it sure. He rose, yawned boomingly. I’m pure

tired. The night was cornmeal-bright—the air so edged 

& blatant it felt star-whetted. Hillsides ablotch with winter. I wish I was drunker

than a warlord, Toy said. I imagined him that next day—under

employed, feudally minded—ribbiting mufflerless into the slew

of hollers, asking the incontinent & ankle-braceleted who made a pancake

of my dog? Getting back a faceful of moldy dunnos, screen doors

guillotining to. Fall had been a page

out of the almanac—vines & stalks so expectant the harvest had to be

C-sectioned off them. A beef or so was tattooed

to death by lightning, but all

in all a bumper yield. Fieldwork was regular. Now what was he to do: go guileless

into the sphincter of a mountain & bully ore? Live like a varmint on the corn

dole? I didn’t begrudge him his miniature narcissisms, a martyred dog. Of course

he spied conspiracy everywhichway, thirsted to get the narrative

by its nape & thump free some sense. So in wooden competence I passed

that night, month, decade nodding with him. Why keep tab? I knew that next day

the sun would still trek the sky at its dauntless putter, a sclerotic man

on a Rascal Scooter. I knew the firmament would still wad up ashen

as an old deed at 4pm. Me & Toy, what use did we have

for calendered time?