I remember being told to soak
myself in unreason—that words
fall to pieces because the wind

needs her role; not everything
must be a weight to grunt over.

Once we followed the others on all fours,
contributing trails through grass and brush
to favorite trees and watering holes
before our spines thrust us up on two feet…

I want to meet
night as a friend
who welcomes and comforts
offers solace and replenishment.
I want night to
become a place
I seek
to deliver, to surrender, to belong.

Last night the new moon broke open across my shoulders.
Then dawn came through the trees
in pinpoints of varying sizes
like starlight glowing among the leaves.

A sea wife,
my mother didn’t have time
to pace a widow’s walk,
searching for a sail on the horizon.

She was too busy
pinning up sheets to dry,
weeding the garden…

Two restless houseflies
buzz around my living room,
stirring the August heat on this
dog day of a summer afternoon

They land for a moment, then
take off again

My love and I drive south
For seven minutes of darkness.
During solar eclipse, the sun proposes,
A sparkling rim and white-hot stone,
We drive for margaritas, the blue Pacific,
to make love when Orion rises…

Here they come, on they go,
One by one, in a row,
misanthropic phantoms
Drifting by me on the street…
snuffed candelabrums….
No warmth to meet…
Incense del Dia de Muertos

As children we mocked
The earthworm’s ambitious move
From safety assured

As children we laughed
At their madness
Their vulnerable bodies
Called by the drumming

A hawk rises on a prairie thermal,
its diminishing black shadow below,
its eye wed in magic to a single spot.

I step in to feel promptly like the prey,
wobbly with hypnosis by gazing above
me, a disfavored adversary to a predator.

In summer months
sun and moon rise from the same spot,
a point northeast of my porch, the place I welcome morning.

I drank Merlot last night from the wine glass you gave me
and thought about how we’d met when our children were
chubby angels, marriage still appeared the answer and the
Twin Towers still raised up above Manhattan like trusted sentinels.

moose at the forest edge
cross the meadow in the sun
munching browse little trees
head up sniffing on the breeze
easy easy ecotone easy
filament barnacle billabong
troubadour trouble away…

People of Thebes! who walk in the debris
Left by the Seven[1] and mourn
The Dragon who lies in the dust,
His teeth chipped, murmuring
About mothers and sons.

We have no heat left for showers
and the washing up. The instructions
to relight the pilot are detailed,

patient—but leave us no warmer.
Grease hangs on our pans.
How quickly we dry ourselves…

She stood tall and strong and willowy
She matched the grace of Leonardo
The clarity of Picasso
The lyrics of Wordsworth
The intensity of Milton
And the power Merit Ptah

House-heart-clock’s rhythmical
beats seem to be growing
weaker, fragile
glass-eyed-windows having
witnessed countless years
of each bird-wing sunrise
and sunset. Front door’s entrance
exit portal keeps tally of all
arrivals and departures.

After track practice,
shorter by half
for the meet the next day,
you cut through the woods
for the packie on the corner.
It won’t be a wild night.
A few friends, a few beers,
colleges accepted,
grades don’t mean a thing.

She anoints discontented worlds
her claws preening her feathers,
with soft snores tinged by night-light
Enchanted by Mexican seeds,
she exerts vulnerable chirps
from a closed, sharp-slicing beak

Why does God send crows to mock my dawn?
They resurrect all that is wrong
with deeds standing on my shadow,
with dogs growling at my heels.
My mind, my heart, I cannot explain
a guitar left out in the rain,
or my path, my direction…

I knew that on your birthday
you would awaken in arms of unversed devotion and I would wake up face down in
the cushion of bogs
a scythe of acidic sedges
and
saturating gales of Wuthering Heights.

The baby boy comet will need a new kidney one day.
Robot cat understands found objects become body parts.
Eyes as stars watch this womb of bountiful fruit.

His birth among biospheres—containers of blue, green,
and orange leaves falling like tears. Later, waves of salad
and feathers toss the young child. He recovers and stands

My camp counselor spoke of Charlie
as if he was sitting there
next to us at the bonfire,
the orange flames flickering across her face.
and transforming
a teenage girl,
into a gruesome jack-o-lantern.

Did you know? Nature
sprang fully formed from the furrowed brow
of Man at the moment he wiped
the smog from the glass and saw
mirrored the long tilt-angled slide
follow, ineluctable, the set-piece denouement
of wild ranges on his barren scalp;