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

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

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

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

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

I have observed, the theorist
I am

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

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

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

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

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

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

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

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