I am still waiting for the lion

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

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

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

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

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

I myself should never have been born

my father holds
his favorite drink

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

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

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

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

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.