I have observed, the theorist
I am

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

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

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

my father holds
his favorite drink

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

The sin is existing.

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

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

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

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

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

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