Living by a Tank Farm Cradle Song

The fuel man’s yelling again, 3:00 a.m., a January night at 10 below, Put out your goddamn woodstove, it’s sparking the sky. You’ll blow up the town like the Fourth of July. Our backyard: the black sludge dump where dead cats seep in soppy mud holes. And every night so far, I sing to the marrow of our tomorrows, to my drowsy children—Don’t let your tiny red chambers weep into your colorless stem-celled dreams. Spin-dizzy in the sweet threshold of this benzene lullaby—Go to sleep, little children, go to sleep.