by
with a thousand toes to step upon
scattered across the ballroom floor
he negotiates with a nonchalance
reserved for sinister seductions
each phrase she said like a rabbit
testing the air for the slightest sound
to announce the wolf’s ragged debut
yet the wolf is off in some other forest
tracking that red-caped girl and
the wind carries sounds
from some other tale as
everything we once knew
crumbles into sullen ash
(April 2, 2021)
by
at night a window becomes a mirror
where I see through my face
floating upon the glass like ghosts
outside the trees glow in moonlight
I open another door and walk out
across the grass mixing my shadow
with the night’s mottled shadows
as if dark lace woven into the earth
I turn back to watch what I’ve left behind
the figures in the house move silently
from room to room like actors
rehearsing how they will say what they say
(April 1, 2021)
the rose belies death’s presence
its slow decay into transcendence
like words we almost knew
but failed to say somehow
only to be troubled for years
rehashing conversations
as if our world would change
if we could only stay on script
hearing each cue clearly without
improvisation to distract
from the offerings of love
burning upon a broken stone
as if some deity would take pity
on creatures who could create
no better god than themselves
(March 25, 2021)
indecisive and insecure
I am on an edge
no cliff nor rooftop
from which to leap
more marginal
more like myself
a collection of questions
laced down a ragged page
I take a moment
to pull myself close
to gather myself
into a tighter pile
of misunderstandings
to tie myself to a series
of questionable knots
strung across the night
with a sense of frivolity
like lights at a garden party
or a noose in a lonesome room
swinging beneath a bare bulb
(March 25, 2021)
“a border is never neutral”
—Jaques Derrida
on a map it is a line drawn
in color across the landscape
it’s arbitrary except for words
which no longer make sense
when placed abstractly on trees
and through creek beds
no one sees them except
the ones who kill ones
who speak their vowels
elongated or shortened
(March 11, 2021)
to form a new line
just out of reach
like desire
and all we remember
we fall away
from ourselves like rain
leaving clouds
to float on the horizon
too tired to speak
too heavy to hold the sky
we move down a road
always approaching a line
if we cross we’re freed
into a new chain
a new destruction
a new circle to close
like blood squeezed
along sclerotic veins
until the heart seizes
at what remains
a lost kiss a touch
one last word
(March 8, 2021)
by
my myopic eyes fix
toward a horizon
I cannot see
as I plod through
this viscous mud
which will be my grave
(February 26, 2021)
by
like the good china handled
with delicate hands as if
the people pictured could be
shaken from the scene and lost
they are only brought out on holidays
or as we gather to bury the dead
who were the ones who knew them all
these photographs that stepped from context
as soon as the shutter snapped
the aunts uncles cousins friends pictured
within a tangled patchwork of memory
at their own holidays their own funerals
look back at us with our familiar eyes
wanting to know who we are what we’ve become
(February 25, 2021)
by
All I know of her is, perhaps, this
three-second, eight-millimeter film clip:
discernibly old, she steps through shadows
next to a tall man, who is also in shadow.
Briefly from the sepia tress, she looks back
towards the camera— her face a blurred silence.
(February 18, 2021)
by
the cat slept all day
turned tightly into herself
a sublime wisdom
snow begins to fall
silencing the day’s hard sleet
the night grows colder
ice brightens the moon
along the bare branches’ backs
like a hot whip’s snap
by morning the snow
drapes the yard as if with light
the chimes slowly sound
a lone mockingbird chirrups
inside the house the cat waits
(February 18, 2021)
by
from what vantage point
can one see oneself
with a panoramic clarity
reserved
for history
and mountain ranges
in the spring
the answer of course lies
in one’s own myopic
vision blurred
with warm blankets
precise collars
and a dilettante’s
book shelf
(February 13, 2021)
by
surreptitiously
he squats beneath
his stone bridge
alone in the dark
like a hungry troll
who waits on a lost traveler
to stop momentarily
between her lies and his
as she peers into the mist
that waits below for her
in the ever-widening crevasse
(February 10, 2021)
by
this letter will be ignored
as so many others
or perhaps worse
misread
as if
some other
were the subject
instead of you
(February 9, 2021)
