I have an axe
with hearts gashed

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

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

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

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

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

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