Necessary Authorities

What stone is telling this story, the silences

of a palm pressed into a steering wheel,

slowing for the guardhouse where they hunt

for flies smuggled in the fruit.

Signs warning of wandering animals,

of notifying the piles of green parrots

dead by the road, the turkey vultures

not far off.

             The no narrative of landscape,

endless grasses and islands of trees—

a horse standing ankle-deep in the flood,

its bridle neatly attached to a signpost.

Not even the mice we feel climbing our necks

as we sleep can tell us of the infidelities,

the way we costume our own hands

or a clear lake means there are two skies.