Around that twist of smoke I see and fear
my own truth: the curled head half-revealed,
the stained-glass brown of the clink of beer,
the curse that splits a frontier, bursts the chill
of evening into sharper shards than moonlight
split by dew into shapes of grass. Solemnly,
someone called Lyall is mimicking me, or you,
or us, or why else laugh? In the welling smoke
and the twitch of flame, the young men shift shoes
and clutch the cold girls. We gingerly pass
with barriers drawn. We shall sleep in responsible tents,
breathing this moonlight that tastes like dust.
