On the loading dock
I see racked ribs
and chickens.
I think of us
hanging like bats
from the monkey bars:

you take off my hat
to let out the blood.

Sunday Machine

I float in the river all day,
watching the shadow
of an eagle grow big.
Then I get dressed,
         rehang
the revolver from my neck.

The Great Skedaddle

Morning’s sky was Cairo blue.
It’s ridiculous to call a color plump
but that’s what it was.
Ma said, You get what you leave for
and he was leaving
for a modern vocabulary.

At the pit of my funk
I found: avocado.
It was a new sphere
for the world to spin around.
There was economy in its syllables.
There was a bloom in its stone.

Bill Carty teaches at Edmonds Community College and at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. He is currently a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His chapbook, Refugium, was published by Alice Blue Books in 2012.