the king of fools

said to me:
I am a Prarie Chicken, a Whooping Crane
a boy with a bat, kicking the snow

The morning and night call out my name
and I unroll wildly into new topographies
I fold into the space between grains of sand
and stalk clouds hung high over saturday afternoons

I ride the winds, I fall on rains
I grow with the grass,
laugh at babies,
clap for thunder,

I have forgotten my own name
and ask you for a cigarette
I have spent all my money
on a sunrise
and burned my shoes
to celebrate heat and light

My body is all dusty bones
and rattling leaves
a wagon wheel and
a plaster floor

Where I go
you cannot follow
but I have been wrong
before