Something must have mothered me,
Rare as I am, shy of light as I am.

When evening comes — purple cleft and plow,
Stain of night birds, shadow trees hobbling

The far rise — I come looking for my own kind,
Looking for you, jackalope. They say

You're stitched from two sad animals,
That you're mongrel and luminous,

That your sob is so tuneful, so human
It makes cowboys buckle and kneel.

Makes desert flowers strain from their centers.
And when the fire dies. When night is all cargo,

Barrow and badland, you come nearer,
Queer and quiet, smelling fear on me

Everlasting. You know me as you know
Outlaw ballads, the runaway moon.

There is only one loneliness. We share it
As we share a sky, the fable of forgetting,

A clamor, a cry.