the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

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

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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

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

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

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

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

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

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote

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

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

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.