“Crisp the Surface”
Shards of invention over
crisp dirt :: secreted
mouths whisper about
asexual
union and definitions :: small
“Takers”
Picking at the bones,
they feed from residual
ligaments left
post quiet carving
began with disinterest
proceeding to tsks tsks then
disregard
“The Winters of the Sun”
Like a title that keys no theme
Except an atmosphere, I slip into my clothes.
A doorknob, a checklist, a podcast
On an unsolved murder.
“I Need Yesterdays” and “If Only to Look”
reprieve thickening
in threatening
the still winter light
encrusted as a high
gray sky in thickness
turning in another silence
as in the waiting
“Where are Tolkien’s Ents?”
There is an army of ghost trees ringing the coastlines of the world.
Once verdant, evidence of a healthy environment,
now leafless, bleached white in death,
phantoms of the forest that once was.
“Touring the Forest” and “Leaning Over the Rails”
This will help you to remember
what a forest was. This one, North Temperate.
Might have been where we are standing.
Here, adjust the strap
around your forehead, rest this over
the bridge of your nose. Click the button.
See.
“Earth Cries and the Oceans Catch the Tears,” “Reservoir No More,” and “Summer — Memory or Prophecy?”
Each corner of a globe
With no corners
Born of the sea as
Liquid or solid
In dances with humans
And dances between humans
Fear and hope meet in their own dance
As the earth cries
“Brood X”
Each insect turns a fraction on its axis, a cocooned child shifting in a half-sleep,
oblivious beyond cool mud to flames of wildfires as they streak across the hills
of Paradise.
“something small has died”
when they’re born…
they g r o w
they m o v e
crawl and
c a
l v
e
“With Love, I Fall”
Looking deep into my child’s eyes,
I see both my ancestors and
my descendants, I fall
into a meditation about Mother Earth…
“Home, Sick”
Zero degrees outside while cozy warm inside
Mother opens apartment’s bedroom window
reels in creaky clothesline of dried laundry
“Cycling,” “Utter,” and “Glass”
On the ride to work I try to remember; did I make my bed?
—Wonder if I love myself, wonder if I care about my children’s children
Wonder where every plastic bottle went—each one I have sucked from and sent
on its journey, perhaps to landfill, and What does that pile look like
“Sleeping,” “Elfie and My Mug,” and “The Land II”
I think I’m sleeping, night long, more than I think,
And days blur like leaves in a pitch-long fall,
while clocks run on with numbers that always blink,
then flicker backwards. I close my eyes and sink
to dreams…
“Good Old Dad,” “Nuns Fret Not,” and “That’s All Folks”
Had enough of it,
pushing along with
his job and family
and gave up.
Game over.
Good old dad,
always liked trains
and that’s where he went.
“Tree Rings,” “The White Cat,” and “Goodbyes”
My skin told me first, when I saw his picture. The cold memory of touch
a frantic messenger, almost swifter
than the optic nerve. My body remembers.
So I got into the shower, ran it scalding, breathed
the vapor like medicine, the mist a place to lose myself,
“Barefoot,” “Reconstructions,” and “Vulcan’s Flames”
He says his favorite clouds
all wear size seven shoes.
He knows she believes
she once saw a paisley rainbow
and will never forget it.
She wears size seven shoes
and her tears can be torrential,
yet they can still nurture
“Pull,” “The Fall,” and “Moth”
Unsure how many lives I’ve taken.
Hornets, spiders, the boy hardened – unbelonging
in the furling roots.
But this isn’t about the bodies,
it’s their shadows, seeping through the openings,
weighing the bones with dark.
“Black Tambourines,” “Brother Red Gold,” and “Flesh”
And I heard black tambourines, stolen
steel guitars, small-room tubas, forsaken
trumpets, green castanets, kettledrums
of gold, stained-glass window pianos
— the orchestra of the alley,
pavement joyously undefended.
“Contagion,” “Melancholia Covida,” and “Intermission”
Who among us has not been infected with COVID
fear? Waking, wanting to vomit but the vomit hangs
burning in our esophagus and we are not certain of the day
of the week or when our toilet paper will run out and if
there will be more in the stores. Who among us does
not fear dying alone, COVID keeping loved ones distant—
“Lake Ontario,” “This Town With One Bridge,” and “A Proctor at the Final Exam”
You are launching us in the boat
that you made seaworthy. It scrapes against the
pebbles which shift so reassuringly when the lake
is calm. It is your boat, your day, and we are your
children. We have brought along our families,
all that we have added to your empire.
“Love Letters,” “Purple Flowers,” and “Chicago Stars and Hospital Beds”
No comfort
in this world
No warmth
rising from the cracks
in this cement ground
Ice breaks
on the surface of the lake
implying your ability to drown
“Cancer: A Paean,” “Legacy,” and “The Three Nuns: A Contrapuntal for Voice and Canvas”
Abditive—that’s you,
sneaky sniper, taking us out
more than a hundred types of ways.
A name change per each organ,
tissue, cell you invade…bronchus,
lung, prostate, colon, uterus…
From the shade you surface
“Old Bookstores,” “World,” and “Spoor”
are sad places, where the dead wait to be loved.
A teenager in the poetry section
sits on a red milk carton,
her black lipstick like an opera,
pulling one book down after another
in a frenzy of polite quiet.
“To the Dead Man Living Inside My Knee” and “What I Thought Was Pollution Was Really God”
A careless dictator, most days
I do not think of you
unless you protest, beating your fists
against the walls of my flesh
when I’ve danced you too hard
or damp February
clenches your teeth
into a knot of hot fury. Please