The looseness of his age and a dozen beers
save him. Walk the boy to the road and stand him up
in my headlights, torn red flag of one hand
waving me down. What is it the night’s long arms love
about a drunk? Its dim trees welcome mistakes, its ditches
cradle wrecks in skunk cabbage, every seventeen
years another child flown out a windshield, bent
for good, stopping traffic. I hold his face to mine, read
the skin of his arm blue with bible verses, my fingers
pure as well water, and cold. Between his rips
on the county road and my visits with the dead,
grief blooms, while overhead in dark branches, giddy
from their graduation dance, cicadas raise their saw blades,
those strong yet clumsy fliers colliding
with whatever crosses their paths.