Hiram with Banjo
by Richard Outram, from Hiram and Jenny (Porcupine’s Quill, 1988)
The broken-off telephone pole
by the shack by the ramshackle sea
points nowhere. The tilted sky is green.
He grins. He admires to see
blue smoke from the three-legged stove
torn over the lion dunes
and swirled in the serpent grass.
He plucks at old crimson tunes,
and spits with the wind. Black rocks beat back
ragged remembering waves.
He is going to have him another drink.
Or two. Well, Jesus saves.