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 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