Pale Green Things

Got up before dawn
Went down to the racetrack
Riding with the windows down
Shortly after your first heart attack
You parked behind the paddock
Cracking asphalt underfoot
Coming up through the cracks
Pale green things
Pale green things
You watched the horses run their workouts
You held your stopwatch in your left hand
And a Racing Form beneath your arm
Casting your gaze way out to no man’s land
Sometimes I’ll meet you out there
Lonely and frightened
Flicking my tongue out at the wet leaves
Pale green things
Pale green things
My sister called at 3 AM
Just last December
She told me how you’d died at last
At last
That morning at the racetrack
Was one thing that I remembered
I turned it over in my mind
Like a living Chinese finger trap
Seaweed in Indiana sawgrass
Pale green things
Pale green things