It would be difficult to say
when it started—the light
filling the cracks and nothing else—
as if we were hunters, not

hunted. When asked we can only
answer Yes, there's a cure
but no disease. And Yes, there's something
that lifts us up and lifts us up until

we hook the sun which is
through with us: no more laying on
of hands. As if the night were
moving away instead of closing in.

And just when that night claims everything,
we want it all: the horseshoes
clanging by the river, the guilty
residents of this town who emerge

from their darkened houses
one by one.
It's the light that changes things;
ban it from your life

and what's left? There's the slight
green that saddles trees in winter.
There's the insomnia that covers our heads
like a horse blanket dying

to be thrown off. And there's the sound
of gunshot creeping furtively
back. It circles and circles,
wanting in.