once

two alpacas were
holding     less intertarsal than hoofwise
evergreens between

only themselves   + under-hoof
not holding more held
lightly to find let us imagine
yarrow good for

tendons on the malleolus     raised altostratus when
each new leg is quite
lassoed quite violent
everyday + this
view
isn’t
strictly ours     like
it’s true that
out by   that half-mirror   one falls down
now heather-set as the pane greys up the pines

if in lasso      or looped
not that I overthink of it

tenderness would wait pinch-cheeked in the brusque
highlands in
elegantly the shape of a pine     wind-twisted

half arch whether hillside or cliffside +
i would not
go    I would not pass so far beyond the drystone but
how michael may dare venture bear witness
like a gull so close the wave
and I
noted my remove from this from
dusk spectral
settling upon his wings

claiming part of his
long long form then
as he glanced back
i
met his eye + quivering
easterly there goes one’s dare
dear for parting by

Holidays and highways
under a tame evening’s dimming cloud or dark
greens of pine or an hour
hugging goodbye at the foot of what was any other streetlamp

***

love

from north of crieff north of skiach upon
rock upon peninsula up-
on a rock
might a lighthouse be a flare that stolen

cries out for another(’s) safe passage through
rocks off the peninsula          they said
it was cats’ eyes           or an
equivocation so called thoracic
for its connotations of cracked and stretched
floundering besides      essential as the coastline

to which or to whom or
of which seal cries         would there were

causeway for I cannot swim that far without
roadway and railway and double the fins      though maybe
it is a butcher’s
crime to make this       a cowardly re-
claimation
if not simply making claim to make or
engineer connection between
the sea both sides of which
high-time and higher tide reject—     then

coming up is seal     belly a sheet grey like
rain that scotch mist or mizzle
is enough to make shiver
each one issuing note
that what each were crying after is
high line of landform

shoaling a wave       and each cried out
even this is not quite what was forgotten
and nor is a middling islet if to middle is to muddle
lit by the flare of a lighthouse of the western column

---

Andrew Wells co-edits HVTN Press, and tweets @newlygoose.