IN THE ADIRONDACKS

After December hunting
for grouse,woodcock
in a meal of venison

and remembering to take

his medicine
at five O'clock

the clever Boston poet
puts on a Prussian blue blouse
he received at Christmas
jacking up the car
takes his racing wheels

for a ride to the Adirondacks
and Ossining
in a New Year's meltdown
of nostalgia's memory

anonymously checks back

to anchor his orange kayak
by the huge Evergreen
when he shields
a cat from a field mouse
near the public park

and reading Basil Bunting

while feeding the birds
in the darkness

yet he wide awake

crawls into his parking space

and kills a crawling venomous
timber rattle snake
trying to lunge at his face
puts on a radio tape
of a late Bach cantata
through the shadows
of the first light sun
scraping off the snowflakes
on my windowpane
it seems
someone has been
cyber hacking anonymously
the music of a Brahms
violin sonata "The Rain"
he's memorizing
to be playing at a chamber
musical recital
next Wednesday night
at Carnegie Hall
now he's realizing
it's already first light
and time for bed
taking a camera
selfie to picture
himself instead
in the car mirror
seen ordering
a morning take out
and murdering
a Spanish omelette
the poet vanishes
in the shadows
and escapes a bullet
of Russian roulette again.