Maybe the problem is that I got involved with the wrong crowd of gods when I was seven….

Maybe the problem is 
that I got involved 
with the wrong crowd 
of gods when I was seven….

…  It would have been an easier life 
if I had allowed a ring in my nose, but so 
many years later I still find the spore 
of the gods here and there but never 
in the vicinity ...

                                                                                                Jim Harrison

                                                                                                The Quarter

as when you slid your window down slowing you
drove by in the snow and cold rain when you
saw me waiting for you. to ask, i thought, if i was fine.
and i made for the door but you said no seeing me
wet and slid the window up again and slipped away.

as when your head were where you kept

your soul like they do in Vietnam, knowing

when you pat it against the satin meninges and

your breathing you suppose you’re a child

of god, slowing and folding into a paper death.

as when while i’m soaking through in the

straight down rain you’ve arrived at a change

of that soul and you’ve arrived again to save me

and then change your mind again and drive

halfway home and i walk after  you

as when your soul floating in the current

furry is stunned and turned to a small bird

that's cuffed again and again against the glass
and falls finally spent to the car floor since you’re
still driving and you don’t know how (as

when you believe you’ve seen this before)

when I arrive at your calamity and pry

your door and pull you out bloody

and breathe on you and try to save your soul
but it wouldn't give me currency

and when you floated entirely away you floated
beside me and inside me like a mother dying
a mother perceiving relief at leaving
and maybe guilt but mostly relief at being
held so tenderly after all this time
of waiting for such a gift to arrive.

*title inspired by a direct line
from Jim Harrison’s “The Quarter”