I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…