Loose Screws

fourfold oracular-syllabic hexastich

Sunrise 24 February 2026 Montreal — photo by the poet

It’s true I’ve had many loose screws
from the time I was a child,
and I’ve skated thin ice
over many dangerous depths
with yard-sale skates—the price tag
still stuck on: $2.

And yet I’ve survived to become
this pilgrim of the shadow
cast by the rising sun
across the frozen Saint Lawrence,
I’ve lived to break through the ice
and drift to the ocean.

I woke up on a Greyhound bus
gently careening over
the Lake Pontchartrain causeway
in the midst of a November
storm in 1989
looking for Walker Percy.

The bus itself had some screws loose,
which was oddly comforting
since its rattles made music
with my own like a summer breeze
makes music with that same bus
arriving at the station.

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