Music Box

He takes her out to the fire.
It crackles like
a skeleton falling apart,
and all the music
hypnotizes others
into frantic swaying
bordering on dance
but not quite getting there.

They claim their plastic cups
of beer and stolen chairs
and watch a fight break out
over something just as stupid.
Her forehead is the color
of a clementine from
the orange burst of heat
there in the middle of it all.

A tall boy in green flannel
takes swigs from a red bottle
in between hacks with some old
rusted axe making firewood.
He repeats a phrase like prayer almost,
there will be no tomorrow,
there will be no tomorrow.

Guitars summon out
the softness of the soul
almost like the belly of a dog.
This music box grinds on
out in the jade green
woods where no one’s
parents ever could conceive,
until the silence takes over
and lightning bugs flash closer
to their faces.

Her eyes imitate the black spade
on a playing card in the insect light,
and watch over him throughout the night.
Then when the morning stumbles over
the horizon they go home together
vanishing into the early fog.