OKAY ANGEL

why don’t you try it, foot on the gas

like so but faster, this ATV isn’t above 

a backslide—what’s June

if the beaver won’t vine the culvert 

where he hears it, he always

does, up by the headgate 

you can squelch over & test the mud-winched arms of his dam,

his main house that is, & every mid-morning we disarrange

his side projects, he throttles the ditch 

with fresh aspen, coins of green shimmy out the pipe-mouth

& he works them again at night, thick veins

snake Gene’s hand that turns the soil 

where he follows, the day 

burns, & Andrew and I tail him, Gene

& the beaver both, we spread our hip-waders 

in the full silt, the weeds that spine from the prized ditchbottom 

& out of the ruts

alongside it. May made

the bodies flower 

but not in Laramie, on Sheep Mountain 

the golden currant heaves out 

pinprick blossoms only now 

& only with the bugs, frenzied, mating, they tell us

that’s what this orgy is for, 

sweet air 

for sweet blood, you get the wind

or you get the skeeters, Gene brakes 

the four-wheeler, & climbs out. Picks one white mountain lily— 

once his father’s

favorite—

now Gene & the machine 

both creaking, full denim on this man

recently seventy-five, cutoff sleeves & plenty dirt 

at the seat 

& at the knees. You get water

when you get that beaver, & sure

some dirty talk too, Emma

oblige me, green crowds the stream the pond the

slow-spread meadow. Gene paces through these now

& you know who else behind, two creatures reckoning 

the length of their territory

& then some, you see anyone while we’re up here

you let me do the talking. All right it’s a lot

like a movie, I see it, I shoot the 22

then the shotgun, it kicks

a few straight hickeys to my right shoulder 

& there go the clay pigeons, which are a safety-vest color

 no pigeon would be caught dead in & which we leave out there

beyond the fenceline, where Gene lobbed them 

lacrosse-style, don’t tell him

that’s how I said it, the shattered ones

& the whole, this is emotionally coded

game & we are not to talk 

about that. Down here 

we’re past the seep 

of this morning’s ditchrun, we stomped down the mountain 

ahead of it, my waders having leaked 

back at the headgate & my feet now damp,

also too warm, wiping around shallow in their rubber sacks. We turn, watch

the bunching flow 

fold narrow over the elk prints.

Confide in me now

& you’d better get the narrative, learn

how to own it up

at the dinner table, Lonetta

and the Great Flood, Gene folds characters like

Deadeye Bullwhacker

& Skinny, 

people, 

listen, Lonetta

owner of Crystal Dolphins NVLTS in Coffeyville, KS &

owner of Crystal Dolphins Bait & Tackle in Coffeyville, KS,

let’s add Blue Queen

of the Vapor Cave, add the German in Thermopolis

with the only tweed snap-brim for miles

side-eyeing either me or Sam in the Lobster Pot 

& again at the semi-broken Suitmate Swimsuit Dryer,

let’s add Al 

who sits grinning, now, at this scrubbed & re-greased table, broad shoulders 

cranked high, green t-shirt

draped off those two bone-knobs so straight

you almost don’t see his chest between, the shoulders themselves

a little crooked, one with its year-prior operation

growing, still, & this delays

not one but two ceramic-on-polyethylene hips, & Gene his brother

needs a third, cobalt-chromium

titanium, nothing 

hurts. Al’s hat

stays on.

When I talk 

his moustache slides

wide over his teeth, tilts 

his head in, his eyes ask say it again

without making me say, this table knows

I can’t hear you but you

don’t know this yet Emma.

Sure little Saige might have called you 

intruder 

when you levered up past the new dog

& onto the porch

but I hugged you on introduction in the dirt

front yard, Saige also dirt-faced 

& grinning like her grandpa,

she’s at your elbow now

stabbing three kernels of sweetcorn

each bite, she wriggles

to make sure you check on her, 

look, what’s the difference between what you see

& what you say, you’ll say it

now, see it again later, 

I’ll watch you

figure it, what I asked, how I asked it, my life here

spread around me, Blair, Laynie, Sage, Jaylene,

the burned post of the porch I duck out to show you 

alone, the fire that close.