I escaped through the basement door
at midnight, while up on the third floor
they were playing death games

on the flatscreen. I walked the dark streets
barefoot in cargo shorts.
Above me half a moon and half a sun

were stalking each other.
A line of handsome homes posed
at the edge of the bluff

as if thinking about jumping.
I only wanted to hide for a while
in their electric landscapes

to become a stone statue of no one
so they would touch my face
with their trembling fingers.

Instead I went down the hill to the lake.
Thousands of fish were in the shallows
perfectly still

like I took a picture of them.
Suddenly they all flew away faster
than fireworks, faster than my Pontiac.

An old man in in a hair shirt
emerged from beneath a shadow.
He handed me his keys.

I took his boat out onto the lake
and slept there like a dead bird
until morning.

– Geoff Collins