horsefly

i sprawl into the passenger seat of autumn’s truck as she steers
over the river and through the woods of untamed root melding
ugly odes to fat toads brethren
of suckled-up syringes
watching my stare to the rearview mirror of tongue
fluttering and stuttering over the horsefly stuck down
my throat so i grasp the gasp of my neck
to release my tongue coaxes out
my body thrashes about the horsefly
scorches rash along any doubt that i too am brethren to this haunted house
or are we the haunted marsh that halfway houses mountains of white?
o spirits of hillbilly bite chowing
down generational lines of pipe and irish catholic
genotype buried in blue union jackets under the feet
of our succumb
to trailer trash stereotype singing
praise betsy ross spelled out in
sighs of exhaust simmering down frost
bitten machine engineers and the financial loss of globalization
combined with dartmouth education rivets and rivals to the
backwoods reservation in this backwards nation under god
willing and almighty, love thy neighbor all the way to salvation and deep
under this passenger seat lodges love between loose cans of hazy IPAs
and loose canon crazy runaways hitchhiking along interstate-91
ask me if i know what it means to live free or die so i squint
out the corner of my left eye to the hungry salamander meandering
by and gag up a salem exorcism of my horsefly–dead but here to remind
she is never more than a step behind
buzzing in my passenger seat, wild and free even
if it is wet mouth she will meet.