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

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

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

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

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

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

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

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

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

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

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

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

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

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.