POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
An Endeavor of Being Now

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

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

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

All In

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

Fallout Shelter

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

“Artifact,” as Translated from Gluberhöff’s Lexicon

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

Going Broke

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Unerased | Steep Steps

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

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Dear Deer in the Compost Pile

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

Like dirt

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

Mom, in Her Dementia, Steals Oranges

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

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

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

Aging Punks

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

Lavandula

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

Snow Falls from Branches

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

Sprung (April)

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

There is an alternative universe

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

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

First

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