You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

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

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

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.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

I have observed, the theorist
I am

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

my father holds
his favorite drink

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

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

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

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt