By William Pruitt
We’re living in a bungalow
in Western Florida when Wolf Boy attacks.
My wife gets out of the house
while I distract
A second, larger
intruder joins the fray
we get in the car and tear down
the coast road past the causeway
We stop at someone’s painted lady
to use the bathroom on the second floor
by the time we get to Dunedin,
word has spread about our home invasion
Everybody’s talking about it as if we’re not the only ones
we meet friends and go out for breakfast,
there’s scattered diner talk, silverware reflecting
voices of amusement and anxiety
—Is Wolf Boy dead? —What about Skeleton Boy?
I keep thinking of the iris prints
in the stranger’s bathroom
and the osprey nests atop power poles you could
see from the road we sailed down in terror.
When everything is normal will anything be left.
I say to the waiter, —Isn’t it like
we’re living in Dick Tracy?
His most recent book, The Binding Dance,is a sequence of poems thematically unified by the need for story in the dreams of time and the self.Characterized by direct speech, it avoids literary affectation, while preserving the values of sound and metaphor.
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