I’m not one to admire change. I’ve been here
for billions of years and will be for billions more,
and in the time it has taken me to draw a single breath,
you meat puppets went from pissing on the savanna
to whipping past my feldspar plains a dozen times

Contemplating the eye of a loved one,
you have noted the white of the sclera,
Its contrast with the pigment of the iris,
the cast pulling your focus. Encircling

everything beautiful hurts
to be touched
your mother’s
cold hand on your forehead

the number on the thermometer
higher than your burning mind
can count
and now you’re the king

I am finally admitting
that I am never going to read War and Peace.
I started a number of times,
printed out a cheat sheet with the cast of characters,
made many a tasty snack,
read to around page 100,
and each time abandoned the project.

The challenge is called Oceans Seven,
and by the time Marcia Cleveland
finished the ginormous feat of swimming
all those channels and straits,
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
she indeed earned ownership.
As in, Her Oceans Seven.

Starscape obscured by
countless swarming pixels with 14-inch wingspans;
but no tangible color or form.
No sound, at least none perceived.
But there was something…
a presence felt. No, not felt. Not exactly;…
a presence known by reputation not senses, as mammal, not bird.

A hot September
morning flames fire to heaven,
Golden Lucifer.

Anticipation
to culmination: a bloom,
its cacophony.

Is there a planet where words silence
a cannon’s demented mouth?

Here, on Earth, furious iron roars
past all reason, past all pleading.
No warding it off
with incantations, prayers,
poetry.

We saunter along the shore,
boys trailing behind.
Tender dusk, the wind
a sigh as we skip stones,
stride briskly between
the bulky boulders, climb and leap.

By way of the stars,
on the tightrope between the worlds,
the grace of the human form, risen from the sea
into the seer in the seen, kin to all life
across the pale blue dot, to live
in accord with our vision…

I can’t wipe chartreuse
from my brain, ever since
you used it in a game of Uno
twenty years or so ago
and it’s such a bold shade

Dark mummified roses standing in the vase,
gray spider webs hanging over every corner.
A broom wipes out the traces of ignorance,
reclaiming the territory once more.

Hold me in your arms just one more time.
Let me feel you surround me.
Let me feel your embrace.
Your solidness, your security, ever my touchstone.

Rumbling rain makes stable
rhythms that soothe
rinse clean thoughts that pry—scratch
between
the hemispheres at duel.

life is not a test you pass or fail.
there is no A+ to earn
no standard to surpass
no reward for finishing first.
life is a book.

January is alight in possibilities.
It’s feeling the cold air as you breathe it in, seeing it exhale out.
It’s the smoke the fire sends up the chimney to greet you from the outside.
It’s your back tingling as you warm near its flames.

Sometime things
don’t go as we planned
No forever marriages
loving children at hand

Sometimes we watch
the news with dread

Just beyond the road’s edge
in the country of black-eyed Susans
and Russian thistle—

just beyond the crumbling line
where asphalt stops and washboard
gravel begins—just beyond the turnoff

Where fall hangs on into late December are

scattered bay leaves, almond-shaped to the
petiole, petiole as boat draft, wake, tiny

battleships and destroyers from the

admiral’s sky vantage, arranged in naval
maneuvers on the asphalt expanse of Hastings

She had a baby
only two weeks ago –
2 pounds, 6 sticks of butter, a sack of flour
a bowl of apples, a bag of caramel sugar
2 pounds of a girl.

She weeps into the bowl of her hands,
her breasts full, her womb a spent sack
her baby, no bigger than a pup…

Tweet, tweet, tweet,
tandaradei,
set the scene
back in the day;
inside and outside
the heat for master and slave
too hot to handle
even in the basement,
even in the shade

Direct the intention seaward, where kelp forests sway like cathedral tapestries,
And the hush of the deep folds inward, a silence vast enough to hold the ache of longing.

Let your thoughts unfurl like sea anemones, soft and trembling,
Reaching for the light that dances down in scattered gold

three-legged cat crouches in the alley
one-eyed horse at pasture
white sun breathes on white stone

green figs cling
to the youth of their branches
resist their gradual purpling

soles of shoes

When I left you alone at night after three it was I think
The storybook moment and perfect ending: three dead
Maji dropping from the sky bounce off clouds. Spiritless
We disappear within the screams, the laughter; Pro-

Publica gone DOA. I’m almost nauseous having thought
Of the way we cook with human flaw; coleslaw dignity.