another crime poem . . .

dragging the packet
he’s made of her heavier dead
he’s thinking than alive
just like her still to be
encumbering his desires

wrapped and wrapped
with old frayed twine
that now catches on
every damn stone and stick
shoulda gone to walmart
duct tape beer shoulda used
the rug shoulda many things
drag-shoulda-thump-shoulda-drag

neon mind flash: the shovel
still in the still open trunk
car far away way up the hill
need to think roll a joint
what a turn-on she’s so dead

you don’t have to bury me here

must be the pot
nonetheless the bag says
farther down past these trees
a ledge with nothing below it but
long air and dark sea

shuthefuckup he says to the bag
hating her she’s usually right

she says water’s good as dirt for disappearing

He says Isaidshutit and kicks and kicks the bag
says who’s big boss now
Miz Smarty

down and down dragging down
to the ledge
not much of a ledge
he says
a verge more like
says it loud like he’s cuing
some offstage somebody
for the second or third time

but the bag is silent there’s
just this deep wind he’s so on top of
feeling so elevated
he’s quaking with it
even thinks he hears
the pebbles humming underfoot
he shouts
best damn night of my life

leans down to the bag says
who’s got the last word now

but he knows
that silence is sometimes the last word and
knows what her silence usually means
she’s holding something back
she’s not telling him
something he doesn’t want to hear
but really ought to know like
something about the slippy-slide he’s in
just about right now