Hank Lazer
AVANT || ADJUST



AVANT

avant   i want

& if you

i am becoming

my father’s dying

body     okra   tomatoes

sweet corn   sunflower

to my son

our neighbor says

“you look just

like your father” 

beans   field peas

new potatoes   today’s

purchase   or to

gain purchase     terror

of bare relation

just now    being

here    it of 

course slips away

ADJUST

    

for the eyes

to adjust &

the darkness become

visible past woods’

edge a shadow

moves the trees

are simply trees

with opaque intensity

knee high thin

blanket of fog

over the mowed

field a friend

carries with him

horrible vivid memory

of a similar

place another walks

here ecstatic it

being this simple