when the night’s
dark eyes won’t lift their lids
the sun
won’t cheer the day awake
storms
lose their breath
oceans
forget their flow
“Angel Fire, New Mexico, August 2020,” “Passing Down Recipes” and “Tenderness”
we landed here
a reprieve
from Arizona heat
from reminders
of a house needing
paint and spackle
and a yard drowning in sun
“It came,” “Dropping in” and “Playing with Metaphor”
It came rustling through the mangrove forest
howler monkeys with their megaphone voices
heard long before seen swinging through trees
on sweltering Costa Rica mornings
the pacific surf came rolling
sometimes pounding and sometimes
playfully lapping the black volcanic sands
“Absence Under the Eaves,” “Elfride’s Father” and “The Book”
folks rarely stopped by our flat
high under the eaves
maybe a bill collector
or a nosey child welfare woman
out of breath
bringing with her bound files
and a jiggle of fat under her chin
“Would that be enough,” “Ancestry.com,” and “In pursuit of her dream”
When she was a young girl she was beguiled by the trappings,
the manners, the elocution of a mighty vocabulary.
She would listen for the rich tones
delivered by tongues that were born and raised
in upper crust high rise apartments ruling over lake Michigan.
Knew how to follow the money, how to modulate words,
the subtleties between rough wool and smooth as silk cashmere