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

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

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

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

I myself should never have been born

my father holds
his favorite drink

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

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

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

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

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

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

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

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.