Life as an ice rink:
falling down and getting up
bruising our knees then gliding
with ease,
bumping into people we don't know
and people we do,
moving faster and faster
as long as we can
circling, ever circling--

The words itch
like beads of sweat
or pin feathers
the moment before
they break skin.

One by one they go
leaving their legacy--
bad or good--
clinging to love or bitterness
or something in between,
leaving the rest of us
no choice
but to raise our arms
In surrender. 

We use the example
of the empty egg shell
left inside the nest;
we tell the story
of a bird learning
to wind a clock;
we fall asleep listening
to the owl renaming
all the stars in the sky.

The whisper of the snow falling
brought back the early days--
her mother's swift hands
shaping the dough
and again,
she tried to set time right
trapped by table and chair,
held hostage by four walls.

Sing, sparrow, sing--
this is our chapel, our sun
shining through the timbers.

Sycamore and pine are sheathed with snow; 
the world is soft and white.

The towhees huddled
in the icy ferns
carry the embers of summer
in their unblinking eyes.

The Tin Man and the Edge of Life
lived in close proximity to one another--
on the edge, you see,
if you keep your course,
you needn't dirty your hands.

Auto correct wrote
this poem for you
because I don't care
about the future
or the best thing
to say when
it doesn't matter
how many people
may have been
in this world--
I love you too much
to ask you how
to make a new song.

The first accident was me-- 
the second: a problem umbilical cord
a loose connection 
and the chaos that followed
can't be blamed on anyone,
now, can it?

This still life,
this bounty,
this fading light.

"I do appreciate you" does not mean
you appreciate--it merely means
you can speak the words 
and how empty the world would be
without specifics.

The weight of last night's snow
returned the elderberries, already
fat with next spring's buds
and all our unworldly plans,
firmly to the ground.

The world stopped rotating on its axis
her heart skipped a single beat
and everything she'd ever done before
seemed hollow and incomplete
until she read the poem
she had not lived.

Don't offer me the sun
ringing the cold morning air
like the clapper in a bell;
tell me again instead,
"I have the moon for you,"
but this time turn
your telescope away.

He had said he loved her
every night and 
she had heard it 
until the words became 
mere carcasses of words
that rained down upon her
just before the rest
of the sky fell.

And that begs another question--
should I tell you that
the bruises on my toes
are the sum of my mistakes
walking in and out of doors?
Or that I'm spending
too much time these days
looking at the sky.

Always a cigarette dangled from her lips--
the smoke in her eyes didn't stop her
she'd lost every tooth 
and most of her good looks, 
but still the will to survive
thrust her forward
into every day 
until her last.

I've lost count of the broken ribs
I've hidden in the back hall closet--
it wasn't the umbrellas themselves
I meant to harm, but how could I
punish the sky?

The pain of loss is never less
even when it's expected.

This bell
will never
ring itself.

Midnight
and the house
closes in on itself;
the people inside 
pull soft blankets
across their shoulders
and close their eyes
with faith
in the sunrise.

I am the cedar
outside your door,
waiting to shrug off
my winter coat
and come inside.  

She smiles and waves as he drives away, 
because that's what mothers do
to hide the beautiful pain
that children leave behind 
as they drift, then finally grow
into their own stories.

Dusk rekindles a fog
so volatile that the smallest
spark of doubt or indecision
will cause it to explode.

The wind across the plains:
a restless thief,
taking her breath
and stealing her sleep.

We might be able to recall
a few of the words we let slip
into the valley, but likely
not before they've settled
on a mountaintop in hell.

He was stranded in the middle
of his life--the streets
a maze of potholes
and dead-ends.

Our want for wanting
nothing is everything.

What could she do
to save her daughter . . .
what would she do
to protect her?

The cookies we are making today
are made of local clay--look,
when we fire them in the kiln,
their fortunes burn away,
leaving iridescent centers
just as the cookbook promised.

She would go to sleep now
and dream
and the rain-slick streets
would drive her home
to that city.

We slipped into your neighborhood last night
to whiteout all the fortunes, all
the lucky numbers locked inside
the cookies at your favorite Chinese restaurant.

There were halos around
the street lamps--around 
the house a fine mist 
had settled in for the night; 
on a night like this,
almost anything 
was bound to happen.

The prayer cards
we toss in the fire
are stark, blank, pure white
because our want is nothing
and everything all at once.

Her life had gone up in the air
like a weightless balloon
headed for nowhere.

We are thankful
for this hummingbird's
return, its winter
way of thinking.

How many great books
will not be read
as we are tweeting
and twittering and
posting our own
impotent thoughts?

My tribe of black ducks
slips into the shadows
and quickly disappears,
safe for a moment
from the circling eagle
and welcome company
when they join me
in my silent watch.

The cat stares at me and nods,
as though he knows exactly
what I mean, as though he holds
the key to everything.

She's on a mission to save me
from what she perceives
as the loneliness inherent in living
in a house on a hill in the woods,
so far away from town,
so far away from her
perception of loneliness, this living
in a house on a hill in the woods,
so far away, so very
far away.

All the books stacked
in front of her,
and despite herself,
she felt sleepy . . .
could she place them
around her head
and inhale the magic
as she slept?

The zealot maintains
her rigid schedule--
one hand offering
her beloved verses,
the other hand broken
in that unfortunate fall
on her previous mission.

Adjunct:
an appendage, defined,
an underpaid essential
that keeps things moving,
rather like the wheelset
of a train--bearing the brunt
of the load as well as
the asperity of the rails.

Hummocks of frozen mud
crinkle like parchment
under my feet--this path,
this signature, no one
could ever forge.

The foundation shivers,
the house cracks 
then creaks . . . 
the dog and cat look to me
as the cold earth settles, 
once again, after the 
quake--

Consider the beauty of the pond--
covered in a skim coat of ice,
too fragile for you to walk on--
and the moonlit sky directing you
to the clear spot at its very center.

The hours slip through my fingers
slip through the days
as winter drifts in 
on the wings of autumn.  

Worn-out clouds
drift overhead
like tails of kites
abandoned last spring
returning home now
to settle in for winter.

I'm working on my long jump . . .
the days of the high jump 
are over and done.

What would you do with this line
left by a careless fisher?

Man of broken shoelaces and chipped coffee cups,
man whose thunderous voice rasps with sadness
and echoes across the years; oh Pablo,
what shall we do with this fractured world,
this world, as it leans forward on crutches
coughing into its filthy sleeves?

A great horned owl
barks at us
from the top of a tree
as we haul our catch
in from the boat--
two pots full of crabs
that have spent their summer
just as we did,
skittering sideways
always looking
for something decent
to scavenge.

Four words from you,
five from me
and we are close to the ledge,
wrestling the rapids
just before the drop . . .

A wind storm at high tide
has littered the passage
with dead bodies--
all those logs and derelict
hours that had been
piling below the bluff.

It never occurred to me to say no--
even now, I am nodding my head,
smiling that ridiculous smile--
of course, I say to myself,
of course
everything is fine, just fine.

Turning the pages
of a colorless story
her hands
plush, ripe plums.

Relieved I wasn't pocketing
a cell phone camera 
when I was young 
and screwing up my life--
now that I am old
and screwing up my life
I know better
than to photograph it.

The woman writing
at the next table
has bandages
on her wrists
covering the injuries
she's inflicted
shaking her pen
like a thermometer
desperate
for her fever
to break.

The unexpected 
is all we want anyway--
kiss me.

Whose genie is this
escaping the bottle
smashed
on the kitchen floor?

I am reading David Kirby at the bookstore
who said you had to be an existentialist 
in the seventies--I've been saying that
to blank-eyed stares for years;
there are words buzzing around me
and I bat at each one that isn't poetry 
and the coffee is bitter,
and the conversation
is creamed, sugared, and stirred--
so I hear only the occasional word,
which is fine by me.

At the end of the day,
a page of ellipses
to show the world
that there are things
I have willingly
let slip away.

If I am the picture,
you are the frame
holding me securely
against the wall.

She plucked a hair from her chin
and painted a picture of the cosmos
to keep herself entertained until dawn.

I'll pull some meat from the bones
I'll stretch the truth--don't you worry;
which part of ourselves
shall we sacrifice today?

Day of the Dead--
the white mums
we spent the morning planting
all those years ago
still guide my way
back home.

She was always wagging
an angry broom
or putting, she said,
elbow grease into it;
I knew her as strong
she did not know me
she hardly knew
herself.

It's no use,
we can't save
the light,
but we can
fool ourselves
into thinking
we have played
a trick on time.

The curl of cat in my lap
the coffee steaming in my cup
the hush of morning, save
the tap, tap, tapping 
of my fingers on the keyboard,
sunshine streaming 
through the window 
channeling a current
of words.

The sea and I
are different people
setting grief
in similar type.

I imagined a movie camera 
following me in my youth: 
always when I looked my best,
mostly when I was walking away from home,
alone, searching for something
though I did not know what--
the narrator of the film
affirming to the various viewers
(all the people I admired)
what a good person I was,
only occasionally did I look
directly into the camera:
it is startling what we will do
to feel like someone 
is paying attention
to what we are doing.

This sliver of sunlight will last
another minute, maybe two,
leaving the faces in the pines
plenty of time to establish order
before darkness determines
who must stay awake
to work the graveyard shift.

At the edge of life,
when you have learned your lessons
and are willing to share them
with those who will listen
and with, well, some who do not,
sometimes, just to hear your own story again
you speak, a hint of smirk on your face,
cause you know what they are in for
and though it's not the strangest,
most wonderful thing ever,
it's pretty close.

The shovels leaning against the shed
hint at many stories, but tell
just the one of losing
their delicate balance
while trying to work the beds
too long after dark.

Is the poem really about a man
with no ears, Steve--
or is it about the bus he drove--
the bus to Pomasqui--
perhaps it is the destination,
maybe it is simply about places 
that are just beyond your grasp, 
the frustration, towns and cities
passing by the open window,
and you followed the directions, 
yet you can't even stop for a visit 
so you begin yelling at the driver--
he can't hear you--and he drives
faster and faster--doesn't he realize
you are on the bus ride of your life?

The doe appears
without her twins
most mornings,
scouring the ground
under the apple tree,
not willing to share
her knowledge yet,
all these fruits
that fall freely
during the night.

Sometimes it was so quiet
she could barely breathe.

Two woodpeckers drum the gutter
outside the bedroom window,
confused by our light, perhaps,
or wanting a bedtime story.

I have not jumped ship 
my friend,
it is after midnight
and once again I am in the cabin
on my hands and knees
searching for what is lost,
the blood moon above
the wind in the waves
and I know, without doubt,
I will find one sparkling moment,
and one will help me find the rest
and all will be well,
earth rotating on its axis 
earth, rotating on its axis.

While the old man tries to solve
the puzzle of what's gone
missing in his life,
the mail appears
with offers and contracts
that fill in all the blanks for him
and guarantee that money
will no longer be a burden.

I remember the orange tree
you planted in the backyard
I remember the dog you kept
on a chain beside it--
life: its pleasures
tangled in the leash
of the dog who had committed
no offense.

We mastered the yo-yo
when we were very young,
hurling headlong
into a dazzling world,
then snapping back
in an instant
to the safety
of own damp palms.

She arose 
and dressed 
as she did 
most days,
readied herself--
she was the space 
in the mirror--
the girl
whose name
you can't remember--
she was proof
of someone
else's life.

To say that the white ducks
look just like angels
stretching their wings
in the new, dawn light
might be a romantic notion,
but it's true, they do,
and the smell of shit
in the yard confirms
that this is heaven.

And the story ends
as such stories do
with the blindfolds removed
a puff of suffering
a smattering of discontent--
the last song is sung
as the curtain falls
the people rise
and leave.

One duck murmurs in the dark--
she's awake now, so am I--
then three, then five, then nine,
then all the others join us,
reassuring one another
that the howling in the ravine
is just wind,
that the night
isn't hungry,
that even though we've seen them,
coyotes can't be real.

He built a house of platitudes
in the middle of the plains
she said, "but, a strong wind . . . "
he said,
"I can always build another . . ."

Every morning
we look
for something new
to rescue.

When the end of the road
met the lap of the river--
you had no choice 
but to learn to swim,
now your legs are heavy
and your arms are tired--
how to begin again
on this land so dry
and wide?

Breakfast crumbs
on the table,
a brown mouse
waiting--no one
wants to eat alone.

Like a cat circles and settles upon your lap
darkness settles upon your days,
you wake
to find it heavy on your chest.

The chilled room
you have entered
has thirty one
open windows
no one ever
thinks of closing.

Down a darkened street
she walked
beneath a blue-black cloud-streaked sky
toward a smoky moon
on a musky October night,
trees and shadows waltzed--
she walked--
beneath a blue-black cloud-streaked sky
toward a smoky moon.

A woman on a bicycle
pedals to the end of the dock
and straight into the sea
while throngs of sightseers
scan the water
for breaching whales.

The steadfast heart is thinking about you,
cloaked in a jacket bought at the five-and-dime
smoking a cigar and wondering 
when you will come to your senses.

Can you feel it--
the small fragment
of yesterday's sun,
this egg, still warm
when I press it
against your cheek?

The rooms in the house seemed unfinished . . . 
as though something--or someone--was missing,
as though each room was lost in its own thoughts
amid the clutter and the dust
in the story a life.

Tie on a bit of frippery
before you lose the key.

It was the details 
that gave her pause . . . 
or had the details become muddled
because she didn't pause . . . 
or had her life simply become
one long, exhausted space?

Settled in a kettle
among the hills,
morning rises slowly,
leaving the sun
to its own
entertainment.

Then, she used words like
pericope and unassailable
she laughed often
and cherished a long walk
she possessed the will
to do the right thing;
now, her will was spent
getting through the day
to the solace of darkness
and the freedom of sleep.

You've reached the point in the story
in which the woman drops her disguise
and opens up her other pairs of spider eyes.

Where will you walk today--
the railroad trestle
or the sidewalk 
the footpath . . . 
on eggshells, perhaps?

Chicory, savory, rosemary, chives,
pennyroyal, salamander, lavender,
flies.

The repetition has the cadence of a death march

and you can't find a door much less the key to open it.

Prunings and trimmings
collect on the pyre, waiting
for the burn ban to lift
and summer to just let go. 

You wake up one day
and your life has changed
immeasurably;
it didn't happen overnight--
but you are so much older now
and you are on the other side
of a dream and you are, well,
nowhere.

Each night
a little longer
than the one before;
each morning
a slightly larger web
outside the door.

She thought about the vastness 
of the world, but the more terrifying
thought was the smallness of it--
its temporary nature--the subject
everyone avoided. 

The fawns' spots
have turned
to rain, their new
camouflage for fall.

At half-past too many things to do
and a quarter before uneasiness
she pauses to take a breath:
the air, much like the past,
wears a musty smell
she has not been able to conquer--
it's three years past yesterday, 
a few hours before tomorrow
when morning sun will shine brightly
on the defeat etched upon her face
and on the dust that masks
all the surfaces of her life.

Even before they ring the bell,
the evangelists have seen
right through my house
to the deer out back
quietly chewing their cud,
having gotten here first
to crop the rampant weeds.

So many years have gone by,
and still, she does the laundry
and holds the broom,
the washing machine hums
as yesterday's dirt spins
she whisks the week's remnants
out of the door into the sun--
the towel on which she wipes her face
cannot remember her name.

The ignition switch in my ankle
has been without a key for several days,
but that hasn't stopped other engines
from idling all through the night.

She pulled the stroller into the classroom
the older one on her hip
her backpack on her shoulder 
beads of sweat rested on her upper lip
and in a line down the back of her t-shirt
she did not try to cover the bruises
on her left arm or her right cheek
she did not make excuses 
her boyfriend had the car
she had taken the bus
she pulled the stroller into the classroom
the older one on her hip
her backpack on her shoulder
and she meant it.

My daughter checks
the oven for cats
before she turns it on--
Just in case, she explains, 
one never knows for sure. 

It is in the veins of the leaves
as they clatter down the street--
it is in the sycamore bark,
and the last blooms of summer,
ragged, pendulous, and nearly forgotten--
it is in the way everything darkens
and a cool, gray wind blows
and swallows the sun--
it is the trouble with autumn.

Vandals strip the shutters
from the abandoned Fun House door
and use the faded wood to build
wheels that set the night in motion.

We must fight what we know
to know more--if we walk
in yesterday's shadow,
growth is not possible.

Some days you are lucky,
and your argument makes it
through the wash
despite its shoddy seams.

My inability to make a decision 
has taken me several places
that were not my intent--
I am in the plains with road signs 
pointing in every direction--
I am in the middle 
with so many possibilities 
I will not take.

Through the laundry room window
at the opposite end of the house,
drifts a note of discord
in the coyote chorus,
which means we'll sleep
soundly tonight while other clans
sort and fold their differences.

C'mon let me hold you, let me heal you,
just like you did for me so many years ago
as time raced too fast past us
and we grew older--
I'll hang your worries in the cellar
where you can't see them
I'll pack your troubles in a suitcase 
and send them far away
I'll put your dreams in my heart
for safe keepin'--
c'mon let me hold you,
let me heal you.

Reading Tender Buttons
in the Quaker meeting room--
out there on the prairie,
winter wheat's first sprout.

In an ordinary moment
on an ordinary day,
you will push through your troubles
as you have until this day;
but, this time, you will follow the questions
and pursue them without fear,
until the sky breaks 
and a robin sings the answers.

A weary garden spider rides
a zip line to your pillow,
entrusting you with the last
of her eggs on her last
day of summer.

I have taken far too many journeys
to have a single history
I have far too many families 
to know who I am 
I've lived far too many places
to know where home is
I possess far too many memories
to have an undisturbed mind--
or to get up in the morning
and know exactly what to do.

Wandering through an empty
house tonight--
the past, the future already
fast asleep.

Brown, of course, is sadness, and gray is indecisiveness; 
red is the color of anxiety and black is the color 
of confidence and yellow is the color 
that wakes us up in the morning--blue
is the color of the oceans and 
it is over our heads--purple is the color 
of everlasting harmony, 
but you knew that, didn't you?

Stars settle on the hulls
of our beached canoes,
waiting for morning
to wash them all
back into the lake.

The problem is that we're angular
not circular--remember Yeats' gyres--
look at us when we walk
look at the lines--
check out those cheekbones.

It wasn't clover in the lawn this time
that made us see the Milky Way,
it was the very thing itself
looking down at us
in our own dark wilderness.

Of course the color of possibility is green . . . 
what other color could it be?

Because we had prepared
to leave so much behind,
the border agent let us go
with everything we carried.

Cloudy days make promises 
but aren't always able 
to deliver.

While talking
to the Bullock's oriole
in its own language,
you will meet
a handsome stranger
in yourself.

The old house slims down
for winter . . . it quakes
and cracks, adjusts--
releases summer's steam.

Leaving the house,
coming home--
changing reasons,
changing weather.

Ribbons of sunlight 
mask my regrets
as dust motes dance
in flawless light
in praise of the day
and yet another chance 
to make things right.

That instead of this
all day long, the next
in line more brilliant,
the one you should
have spoken.

We are reading
we are silent and happy
far from the huff and hiss 
of the highway--
miles from the sting and snare
of the everyday, 
we are reading 
we are silent and happy.

Two lifeboats adrift
on a landlocked sea,
our lines entangled
in flotsam and weeds.

These days it's not good enough
to know the answers . . .
we must know the pages
they are on as well . . .
let's keep those prognosticators
from lift-off . . .

The front door opens
like a pop-up book cover
to  reveal a tired character
unfolding her creased face
and hands before slipping
away into a better story.

This is no dress rehearsal--
it may even be borrowed time--
we must know our lines
and how to deliver them.

There are many ways to ruin a life;
keeping a list is number one.

There is a difference 
between dust and neglect--
and perhaps some day
I will understand where 
to draw the line.

This morning we caught wonder
drunk on the lawn,
trying to solve today's puzzle
before it had been written.

All the pieces fit together so perfectly;
all one could do was 
tousle them about
and begin again.

We repeat the vow daily,
that two shall act as one,
then step over the threshold
in mismatched shoes.

Road signs are good
but they can't tell you a story,
maps tell you where to go
but can't explain what to do
when you get there;
friends are forgiving,
but books are more so--
books answer my questions
and are never defensive 
they are welcoming
and never angry . . . 
they take me to places
I've never been
and explain what to wear
and what not to eat,
they teach me how to camp
and how to build a fire-- 
they rescue me from drowning,
they tell me to poke a shark 
in the eye.

Frozen by the freedom
to choose a perfect escape.

I walk past the counter
talking to myself--
I am taking the good lines
and putting them where they belong
I will pour my coffee, 
sit at my favorite table,
and words will spill onto the page
faster than my hand can write.

At the end of the day
the tree you thought
you'd climbed into the sky
is just a toothpick
you've been twirling
in your fingers.

Morning dew glistens on each blade of grass
as I pull weeds around holly and aster;
I bend and stretch into the morning,
breathe and exhale and breathe
in the pastel scent of the tea roses
as I bend and stretch into the morning,
exhale and breathe
in the scent of peppers and tomatoes
earthy and strong,
breathe to remember this morning
in all its perfection. 

The clumsy, old squirrel in the Douglas fir
fumbles one cone after another,
watches each one crash the hundred feet
to the forest floor, all the while chittering
that he meant to do just that,
to startle us to attention,
that what he was starving for
wasn't food after all.

He is a savage intellectual with a quick wit 
who can make you convulse into laughter
if he so desires; the choice is his, not yours, 
you remember that--he can look down his nose 
at you, too--he is just that smart.

Small sorrows
flutter toward
the open window,
settle on the sill,
wait for a breeze
to wash them
back inside.

I am walking through this world
armed with words
having spent my entire life
putting them in the proper order;
I place the most important 
books on the shelf--
what more can a person do?

Peelaboo, 
peelaboo, 
peelaboo--
I am not crazy,
only craving
a voice
long forgotten
crying out
for a favorite food.

There is  much
to worry about . . .
haven't you felt
the trembling?

Pain, my eccentric friend,
talk to me again,
remind me
where we're going.

She hummed along with the cicadas 
just as she had done as a child,
yet now she drifted alone
through a Kansas night
rich with moonglow 
and too many stars to count.

After stealing the plum roles
for itself all these years,
my right hand clenches
at the thought of losing
the lead to the left, its lazy
understudy still struggling
to learn to play the part.

She had made it to the other side of life . . . 
she was squinting into the sun, 
trying to remember.

The surgeon slits my wrist--
my credit card now due
for all pleasures taken.

I am in the boat;
I am rocking the boat--
I am sitting in the boat
paddling slowly away.

A shower at dusk,
a shower at dawn--
between them
not a drop of sleep.

In the thick of August, 
I ask the flowers to remember
how I nurtured them in spring time;
I ask the weeds to step aside--
I pray the ivy 
does not devour the holly.  

Next to the baggage claim carousel,
a pair of lost sparrows
recovers in the water fountain
after wrecking another landing
on the polished terrazzo floor.

When I listen to your music,
I cannot turn it loud enough
I cannot stop dancing
sometimes I sing along,
and I can tell you
you're not finished, 
c'mon and rise, my old friend,
stand up: 
this is your time to shine.

Reality and imagination--
two ferries swinging their passengers
in a never-ending dosey doe.

They almost had me convinced
that I had to pay
because they could not.  

The kitchen table has shifted shape
many times over the years,
and has at times disappeared
for vague or unknown reasons,
yet it's always here for hearty meals
and heated conversations.

Looking back, 
I realize I didn't take the journey;
the journey took me--
there I was, stumbling along
into one after another
happy accidents.

It's not calamity or misery
that rule my days--
no, quite the opposite,
and sometimes, it seems,
that's the tragedy.

The things we thought we needed 
stand before us, empty, 
covered in dust.

We fatten the rats
simply by existing
in a clearing
on their land;
we kill them
and toss them
back into the woods
and cry over
our wastefulness.

How could I know
that you had been taking notes
all those years--
saving those little scraps
for today,
an ordinary summer day,
how could I know?

I know a day like today
comes once in a lifetime,
just like any other day
back on the open prairie.

It was your mother's funeral,
yet we could barely restrain
our laughter as each person
that passed the casket
said, "she looks
so good . . ." oh,
the irony of everything.

A funnel of light
falls through
a momentary lapse
in the perfect arrangement
of clouds.

Remember the time we rode
the horses bareback
and saw an alligator--
how we raced home
through tangled brush
frightened, laughing
so hard at each other
we could barely breathe--
remember me?

I can see
through this wall
and will still
tear it down
so that you
will no longer
need to walk
around.

Oh, how the words twist
and turn,
and sometimes tumble
from our mouths,
as they lift the sky
and swallow the sun.

When the geologist died, his wife held
a yard sale to be rid of the collection
that had weighed her down for longer
than she cared to remember;
I gave her a quarter, maybe more,
(such are the things I'm likely to forget)
for a portion of his bounty:  a handful of small,
water-smoothed rocks, which I keep
on the sill above my kitchen sink,
having carried them with me house to house,
state to state, decade to decade, and bathe
each day to see again what he saw
when he first pulled them from the river.

She is concerned for my eternal soul 
and that of my family; 
she says she prays that I will come to know
the eternal truth 
because she wants to see me
in the hereafter--
of course, she could visit me now
before I'm dead,
she could ask me what my beliefs are,
instead
she could have asked me
how I was doing.

We rush home
laughing at the tide
trying to catch us
with beach stones
in our pockets.

My son gave me the numbers--
the science of it all--
in a clean line he declared the facts;
I explained that mothers
do not limit their decisions
to science--we prepare for 
the unexpected; we prepare for
the everything of it all.  

We dropped a few rough words
here and there along the way,
thinking we'd return some day
and find that they'd been polished.

After the rain, nature's offering:
107 cherry tomatoes,
30 Romas
7 Juliets
4 Heirloom
3 cucumbers
2 jalapenos
1 lb of swiss chard, 
and too much kale 
to count.  

High summer, sleeping
with the windows open
and the urgent need
to hear the owl
from the other side
of dreaming.

It is like walking the ledge of a tall building,
say, the fifteenth floor,
inching along to find an open window--
then, realizing there are no doors
in the room you've stepped into:
climbing back onto the ledge
is your only means of survival.

Some choring,
some choiring
are required
to meet the dawn.

She kept reaching for yesterday
trying to bring it to the forefront--
it was as though she'd forgotten
the essence of time.

One by one, the old farmhouse chairs
wander off to the woods,
no longer afraid of woodpeckers
or the scent of smoldering ash.

It was hard to keep the ship afloat
despite the calm sea.

Morning draws a wild card,
passes it under the table
for the afternoon to play.

Throughout the day she told herself
that everything would be okay;
sometimes she had a hard time
believing herself.

Another Sunday
machined
to perfection.

Who was she in those days--
so smart yet so naive,
with only her mother's strong will
and her father's boisterous personality
to guide her?

Even the days
I don't look
at the calendar
are named,
numbered,
and stored
for future reference.

In truth, life only happens to the young 
and under-prepared . . .
the rest of us must reach out 
every morning
and pull life back to our airspace
as it begins to shuttle away.

A sliver of sunlight
quavers through
the hours left bottled
on the shelf.

I keep waiting for my life to begin, 
as though life
is something that does not require 
my participation--

I'm beginning to believe
the beast consuming
the final fiber of my nerve
has a large and hungry family
waiting for it
to come back home.

When regret and resentment arm wrestle, 
regret always wins--resentment 
cannot keep up with the facts.

I was never good at finding
four-leaf clovers
or enough reason
to stop looking after dark.

You always think you’re closer to the top
than you are—in the dark, it seems
there is always one more step.

The lizard has found its way
back to my chain of charms.

A tangle of tomato vines 
and my restless hands--
anchoring stems
looking beneath leaves
pulling weeds
everything green--
how content I am
on a cloud-filled
rainy day.

We devour the salt that remains
after we wash away the sea.

A polar vortex in the Great Lakes
has shushed summer's heat,
cast a favorable shadow across the plains,
sent cool breezes to dance in the streets.

The hour overflows
the thimble-sized glass
we've set out for it.

Along a line of weakness, 
a butterfly breaks through its cocoon
with time . . . and breath.

A minus tide strips
the clam beds of their covers;
we tear through their mattresses
and pirate all their treasures.

Life is the tenor;
you are the vehicle--
you.must.move.

I know a woman who eats
abandoned cats for breakfast
and posts gorgeous pictures
of her favorite meals.

It was like pulling a rope from your throat . . .
the room suddenly brighter with your defenses
and for those few moments, we were electric.

Now I know that
when I apply
adequate pressure
to your faults,
I can make
a perfect rock.

She told the stories long enough 
that she believed them herself,
words spilled sideways from her lips
as she spoke;
now and then 
I saw a glint of recognition as her eyes
met mine, but she moved on--
she always moved on--sideways,
did she hope I hadn't noticed
or not care if I did?

An oriole repeats
its lost mate's trill,
water climbs
back up the cliff,
the calendar reads
itself to sleep
and never finishes
the chapter.

Silk plants and disloyal friends,
items in boxes that had waited much too long to be used,
clothing that no longer fit and books I didn't like;
I rid myself of all things untrue
then said to the rest of my belongings
"We need to believe in each other . . . "

It's easy to find
heart-shaped rocks;
it's hard to make
them shine.

She made them eggs 
and kissed their foreheads
before they left that morning;
she watched them walk out 
into the world together
wrapped in her love.

The hat check clerk
claims my mechanical heart
might set off the alarm
and offers to hold it
for the evening.

Lost in the middle of an hour
in the middle of the day
I will look both ways
before crossing . . .

Summer stalks in
like a feral cat,
then disappears
before we can get
a closer look.

Use your candles and whisper to find your way.

Why won't you listen
when I tell you to put
figs in the pudding?--
it's already July,
and the days are beginning
to close in on winter.

My parents' voices 
echo across the decades:
my mother's voice
brown and dissatisfied,
my father's voice
rich and comforting--
I am both of them,
and yet, I am neither.

Spring holds court
through the Fourth,
watching summer struggle
to gain independence.

When people divorce,
it is a windy day 
and their hair is a mess . . . 
they can't remember 
where they are going
and they always forget
where they came from . . .
when people divorce
they pull the blinds down
they need new glasses
and the roof begins to leak . . .
when people divorce
the world asks
invisible questions.

Five new beds filled
with air and plans
for a bounty beyond
any reasonable desire.

Details had been her specialty;
and she was the best, people said,
but the particulars had turned on her--
her life had become one long pause
between the details--
"How did this happen?" 
she wondered aloud as she stacked them
neatly next to her bed, 
in the kitchen, on top of the desk
and in boxes in the basement--
one day she would get to them.

The mail arrives wrapped
in damp spider silk
and news to keep me
spinning for a week.

There is a closet in your room
where you store your secrets
in the pocket of a jacket
you used to wear . . .
the shoulders were as straight
as your life was once
and you smile to think 
of the glow you wore 
in that jacket
in that life.

If you wish to pack
every possible future
into a single lifetime,
I suggest you begin
with a breakfast
of white rabbits.

The drumbeat fades
as our friend takes his leave
unexpectedly . . .
we shake our heads
we wring our hands
there are no words to speak.

The funiculars
at Sandy Point
unzip the bluff
and from time to time
bring it to its knees.

The dominos fall down around her;
the nips wear mournful faces . . .

Every breath
a parachute
delivering you
safely to the ground.

Go buy yourself some dinner--
hydrogenated or on the rocks--
let's lean in together 
and pretend.

Why can't love and grief
start traveling in separate cars?

The ground finally breathes
as the rain whispers,
then sizzles . . .

The trail at the top of the world
is littered with mating beetles
and hungry robins.

The trees comb the sky 
with delicate branches,
move slightly in the sunlight
to temper the wind.

Its schedule confounded by yet another
dramatic monologue of fog,
the ferry dock groans
under its backlog of tourists
napping behind their wheels,
oblivious to the troupe of pigeon guillemots
clowning for them overhead.

There's a wolf howling at my door 
and the sky is about to break . . .
still, say something specific
and I will listen.

A communion of blackbirds
chants for the morning sun
to burn its glory hole
through the fog.

After the storm
the grass is covered with the crust of sycamore;
it must be growing again, 
stretching, splitting
unable to be contained
and though nothing is wrong,
I feel so helpless--
its tender bark lying in fragments around me.

A little left of the abandoned
airstrip, now just a sunburned
avenue of grass, Waterman's Rock
commands the landscape
with a loneliness twice
as large as its house.

In my dream
I am walking through city streets
in the dark with no fear
to Gentilly and it all comes back to me
the house on St. Ferdinand,
cypress trees hanging long and low, 
honeysuckle tangled on the wrought iron gate
which I open slowly
and I am home to see my father . . .
I knock and wait, knock and wait . . .
I cannot believe, even in slumber,
that he is gone.

The night's needle eye
meant to admit
a skein of drunken angels
lets slip instead
a plague of restless hours.

I'm climbing back in
and I won't pretend
that I like what I see--
things don't need to 
mean anything 
and the robins still sing
don't hold me responsible
don't hold me.

Six hours after the solstice,
summer is already weary
of having people stare
at her naked body.

Though the sound of her footsteps
was familiar, she could not remember
what came next after the walking . . . 
and the incessant wailing was distracting--
why were there so many sirens now?

The barred owlet warns the clearing
of its adolescent angst and hunger
with its penny whistle voice.

There was no doubt in her mind:
Shakespeare was the only man 
who could save her now.

All morning long,
the sun lingers
on the outskirts of knowing
how to grant our wish
for a warm summer day;
by noon it's clear
we'll have to wait
another day.

I stand here, hands on hips,
wondering which path to take
to find the words that lost me.

No matter where we go,
we find something there
already beginning
to move away from us.

Restless in mid-June,
she watches helplessly 
as Kansas wind 
scuffs clouds 
caught between
spring's brilliant forsythia
and imminent August,
with its wilted flora
and suffocating heat--
she was angry 
with knowing.

It's too early for the owl,
or too late, neither she nor I
is sure, but here she is,
nonetheless, lazily perched
on the squirrel feeder, waiting
for dinner to be served.

I hear it in the closet,
beneath the attic fan in the hall,
I hear it over my morning coffee--
even the children stand askance to listen
when those wrens begin to pipe--
wrens are chirping in our attic
baby wrens
they sound so happy--
it would be sacrilege 
to disrupt that kind of bliss--
no lolling in the past
or smothering in the present
while birds sing exuberantly,
yet it's only a matter of time
before they shriek my life away.

The first word was a mistake,
a trip down the wrong path,
but we took it anyway,
and look where we are now.

The weather,
the weekend,
what we had for lunch--
we aim for the mundane
as though we must 
enervate space,
as though silence
was a predicament
to be overcome.

The oil will sulk in the pan
all afternoon waiting
for just a little heat
to make it come to life.

While I wait for you,
I wash the dishes
and stare out of the window
for some kind of sign 
that soon the sound 
of your footsteps
will draw near
and you will wrap
your arms around my life 
and hold it close.

Electricity snakes
through the garden
in bright orange skin,
alarming the ducks
with its power to deliver
light before dawn.

Despite the weeds and hot, hot sun
the petunias turn their innocent
faces to the sun
black-eyed susans keep my secrets
hibiscus has a new coral bloom
each morning--

Clover blossoms
in the lawn, thick
as the Milky Way;
the doe spends
every day here
feeding on stars
in broad daylight.

Strawberry moon binds
my shadow to the night sidewalk
leads me to myself
the trees whisper their secret
crickets lean into their song.

Look at it from the other side--
the spiral has another way to go.

Tonight the moon is following my every move;
it is neither waning nor obscured by clouds,
it is high and luminous and full
of possibility.

I've arrived--
looks like paradise--
but where are you--
you said you'd
be here too.

Which bird trembles first
when the rest of them follow,
when the best of them shadow
so skillfully, teeming 
with purpose?

A third of the way through June,
the temperature at dawn
is only forty eight degrees;
summer takes her time here,
more patient than the five-point buck
steamrolling the ferns
anxious for his breakfast.

Sometimes things just break 
and it's not a sign of anything. . .
sometimes doors open for no reason,
so we say it's just the wind.

Sometimes you need this
kind of Tuesday--
the wet, grey glue that
holds your life together.

Locust song fills the space between the river
and the road, between yesterday and today,
though there are no locusts in this life
and the world has settled to a slow hum.

You'd think that Swainson's thrush
would tire of this rigid schedule,
but he's always up ten minutes
after I am, and he never fails
to follow me to bed.

You know how it happens--
one day you're sifting seed into soil,
cropping the hedges, comfortable breezes
grazing your skin. . .
but before long
sycamore leaves crackle
beneath your feet. . . 
pine and brier resist,
but the garden aches and declines
until it is impossible to mend.

A horde of starving caterpillars
swarms my chair, beguiled
by the iron flowers wrought
into its legs and arms and back;
most of them will surely die
before they come to realize
their careless mistake.

She had been full of hope once,
she must have been, and
she had been grateful. . .
she remembered this quite clearly--
it is an arduous process to squander
such emotions, still, 
she had managed it.

The deer simply turns her head
away, erasing me
from her sight and thereby
perfecting the wilderness.

These days she waited for time
to swallow itself and move past
the details that were impeding
her descent.

Mr. Wilson's warbler,
a gold coin glinting
through half-lit fog.

We must examine the "in-between,"
we can't just study "this" and "that"
it's the "in-between"
that keeps us moving. . .

Somewhere between
a sleeping bag
and a sarcophagus--
trying to get the height
of the new bed
just right.

He said "goatique" instead of "goatee"
and
"handy-down" instead of "hand-me-down". . .
he said she taught him to laugh at himself
he said, "maybe you never really know,"
and she raised her eyebrows
"maybe it's a crapshoot," he said. . .
he said, "I thought we'd just settle,"
well, you probably know
what she said to that.

My rats--everyone on the island
has them--are hungry, bold, unafraid
of my threats to wring their necks
each time I rise from this chair,
but my husband has a different plan
involving waiting and a weapon
and an engineer's precision, yet I know
we'll walk into the house at dusk
with similar results.

There's a cabin
up on the hill
I've never seen
I live real close to it
do you know 
what I mean?

The carcass lies dismembered
on the freshly-mowed grass;
whoever built this swing set
didn't mean for it to go this way,
but where it stood derelict,
abandoned by its youth,
there's room for something new to start
and decades left to let it grow.

She remembers a life
that was once hers,
so far displaced
it seemed impossible
that she moved 
within it;
further back
was yet another
life, one which 
she could no longer 
reconcile as her own.

The web worm population
has exploded this spring--
even on sunny days now
we need our umbrellas to walk
under their medieval villages
when they're cleaning house
and emptying chamber pots
out their open windows.

For years I wondered 
about the souls of the dead;
now I know they gambol
as hypnagogic imagery,
yet, from a point of knowing, 
we all want to know less.

The ghost
in the garden,
the swing set
missing
its swings.

I've been searching for years,
even in slumber, to find it;
I am sleeping for the dream
where you break open the silence
like an eggshell and tell me the answers
to the questions I forgot to ask.

A robin brushes my hair
as she sails to her spot
in the cedar; my particular
browns and greys
are the optimum colors
to camouflage a nest.

Those goddamned mournful cypress trees
obscuring the gaze of your dying eyes,
the lake rising around us,
the car driving into a tomorrow
I could not have imagined--
where is your voice?

Our legs buckle under
her vast shadow
just inches above
our knotted fists,
but this time we see light
through her empty talons,
her scudding tail
as she returns, humiliated,
to her hungry eaglets.

It would be a breakthrough
or a breakdown--
she wasn't always sure 
which one was coming.

The eagle visits
almost daily now;
this morning, in fact,
she even tagged along
to the post office
wanting to help me
fetch the crate
of day-old ducklings.

"Embrace your confusion," he had said,
"you may take it as a sign of direction,"
so she and her angst
walked hand-in-hand into the sunset.

Afternoons, they play at being
pink flamingoes lounging by the pool,
balanced on one leg;
evenings, they're flamenco dancers
clacking bills like castanets,
but mornings are hard work
for ducks being ducks
eating slugs being slugs
and making us eggs for breakfast.

Today, if I hear something more
than "Have a nice day," or
"Have a good holiday," 
I might just glisten
as though I'd swallowed a star
as though you'd written a poem
      and dedicated it to me
as though the whole world stopped 
      for something real.

The garden gate arches into
the roof of a gypsy caravan
intending to stay for as long
as the weather holds.

He drove an amphibian on the shores 
of Guadalcanal--
broad-shouldered in a marine uniform--
he smoked Lucky Strikes
sang Alouette 
loved Gone With the Wind
and cheap wine
and big steaks 
and pretty girls.

I love that you love
to talk;
I also love to talk
sometimes.

And so for each impassioned gift she gave him,
he would only see his own good fortune,
never the sweat on her brow; 
he saw each stone that fell from the facade 
as a bump in the road, never as the beginning 
of a mountain they would not be able to scale.

We leave the windows cracked at night
for the newly-discovered comet--
209/P Linear (which we give a different name)--
to cast its shadow on our dreaming.

There are only a handful of days 
until the wind sweeps away your chance
to say something meaningful to the sculptor who, 
with the power of love and trust, 
once made you look real.  

Like clockwork, the tanager
returns from the tropics
the week before Memorial Day,
reminding us that nothing
goes away forever.

When you are fifty years old
you will have a large party, 
after which you will begin to
announce your age to everyone 
because you can't actually believe it,
or, you will never mention it again, 
because you can.

Our grandmother's life, a string
of amber beads locked inside
the rock of her Bohemian language.

I want to talk to you about miracles, 
their lean pretense, their raised eyebrows 
as they stare you down 
when you have waited so long 
that you no longer recognize them,
and as they edge you off of the road
you stare back, appalled, 
then turn and walk away 
because we all know
miracles can't be trusted.

Here is the recipe
you've been looking for,
she said, giving me
her way of turning
a dozen paltry moments
into a luminous day.

I crawl 
through dirt
search each blade of grass
breathe in warm, sweet-smelling spring
looking for Wednesday's words,
wondering when my world
became so small.

Dark clouds snake
across the island,
their bellies bulging
with somber news
from the open sea.

As we age, clarity wanes 
edges of sound and sight soften;
even memory dims. . .
the answers
are neither black nor white,
unless we cover our ears
and stop, refuse to listen.

The ducks descend
on the compost pile,
throwing off its straw cozy
to get to their steaming
pot of worms.

In his world, the news is always bad;
the person with the job pays,
in his world if you don't have money problems,
you can't possibly have problems. . .
the more pitiful your situation, 
the more he will like you. . .
in his world, someone else is responsible
for his flaws, and many times
that person is you.

Robin, towhee, varied thrush--
each a different shade of orange--
when startled from their covers
raise the same alarm.

The answer was tangled  
in her emotions 
and in the fine tooth comb 
of her dreams.

He dreamt about
my twin last night,
and when he leaves
the house at dawn
I tell him--Don't be mad;
she will always
turn away; she can never
quite remember
exactly who you are.

She had been living on old poems
and chicken noodle soup
for far too long.

I wonder where you are,
why I haven't heard:
Are you still in that shining
moment on the hill?
Or has the swamp
called you back under--
we both know there's
nothing in between.

When you don't read
the world begins to close in on you,
and when the world begins to close in on you
it makes your world smaller, 
and when your world is smaller
it becomes impossible 
to think big thoughts.

The sword ferns scale the wall outside,
threatening to invade our bedroom;
we crank the casement window closed
severing their fingers.

Young people aren't supposed to think about dying;
they are busy with soccer games and sleeping in. . .
they have more important things to do 
like hanging out with friends
and being invincible. 

Unseasonably warm--
web worms open their tents
in the apple trees,
an escarpment of knees collapse
beneath a bistro table,
a drowsy couple decides what to do
when the bottle is empty.

She ran a tight ship
and that is likely what saved me. . .
the schedule. . .
when things started happening 
that weren't normal, I could always 
depend on "the schedule".  . . but 
last night, when the ceiling began to shake,
I knew the past would find me 
no matter where or when I left it.

I'm sorry, but that one word,
that bullet I shot
to the heart of the matter,
will never be retrieved.

I wonder if my children could spend a day
pulling weeds and believing 
in clover, daydreaming
in the warm, soft grass
of summer.

Violet-green swallows
gorge on mosquitoes, gnats, and flies
rustled by my husband's mowing,
the evening still bright,
their promises fulfilled.

My mother sang, "I'm looking over a four-leaf clover,"
when she did her work, so the days we all pulled weeds,
I sifted thoughtfully through each bunch of clover,
knowing the possibilities
looking for those four leaves
as carefully as I could,
believing.  

We left the wind waves lecture believing
one needs a mind of water to understand the sea;
we have minds of grass.

There's no forecasting the weather in Kansas
though they insist upon it,
there's no use talking about the wind,
its fickle and wild and occasionally destructive nature: 
here, the people are more predictable
than the weather.  

The ducks are still wearing
their plague doctor masks
fashioned from mud
after the morning rain.

Sometimes the answers look at you with startled faces:
sometimes you pretend you don't see them--
other times they sing to you in the rhythm of an ordinary day--
sometimes the answers wave goodbye 
from the freight car of a passing train
while you are kneeling  in the dirt, 
having lost your way, in Kansas.

My vision clears
looking through
the unwashed window.

The grand irony:
what some people do
in the name of youth
makes them look like
Batman's villain,
"The Joker". . .

All in the name of science,
the cedar waxwing, Bombycillidae cedrorum,
gorges on over-ripe berries and stumbles
excitedly out of the hawthorn, too drunk to speak,
while Troglodytes pacificus, the Pacific wren,
trills its report at thirty syllables a second.

The lunch crowd is unhappy
save for a privileged few;
the breakfast crowd
knows what a waste of time it is
to wish things otherwise,
so they think of their daughter in Spokane,
the bloom of old garden roses along the fence,
and the dog that waits at home
for the sound of their footsteps. . .
the lunch crowd swallows all the air 
in the room searching for time,
but time just gives them 
a backward glance as she bounds
through the door.

The Japanese maples ringing the clearing
weep in the late afternoon rain;
the bottle of sake stored in the pantry
springs a sympathetic leak.

What is life 
if not 
things left undone?

Drumming high in a hollow cedar,
a Pileated sounds its mate across the ravine;
after fifty-seven false starts,
our day finally has a rhythm.

When the lunch crowd comes,
I leave
preferring the breakfast crowd:
the smell of coffee and burnt sugar
to the smell of grill
and the sound of hurry. . .
the breakfast crowd crinkles
their newspapers
the old men smile
over the steam of their coffee.

We could let this moment storm over,
or we could ride its eye
until it makes landfall.

The skeletal remains of elapsed yesterdays
lay before her. . . surely 
she could fashion one more life for herself
with all those bones.

After the cold morning rain
steam rises from the garden
like some kind of tropical joke.

I am between here and there,
standing in the shadows
pretending to breathe.

Rocks pop up like dandelions
planted by the last glacier
and wait for the next one
before they'll go to seed.

I can't come any closer,
something could break
I will hold you at arm's length--
we will all be safer for it--
the pages will turn
to the same old story:
the book will read itself.

A pair of golden eagles,
a double wedding ring,
an eternal pattern
wearing thin.

It's 97 degrees outside;
my thoughts melt
into another mess
that will need to be
washed, dried
and swept away,
and I will need
to think again.

The new neighbor
has a name,
marten, which sounds
friendly enough--
a favorite uncle
or the stock boy
at the grocery store--
but don't be fooled,
he's the one who'll
sneak onto your property
while you're asleep
and eat your poultry
raw.

What is real
needs no introduction
it does not need
to explain itself
its meaning is clear
what is real
doesn't dwell on troubles
its mishaps are few
what is real
needs no conclusion
as it stands like a soldier
at the end of the world.

We heard the sound of rapture,
a thump against the bedroom window,
then found the pair of chickadees
lying side by side on the path below,
the space between their silent beaks
the thickness of a pane of glass.

The hospital lives behind me:
sometimes I can feel it breathing
sometimes I feel the rhythm
of the heart monitors,
I watch the lights
flip on, then off,
as someone
draws the curtains 
I hear the helicopters
landing on the roof
with only seconds to spare.

Let them come and go
as they please;
it's not your job
to open and close
doors for the dead.

Today is a different kind of gray;
you slipped into my life 
through a side door, 
as though 
you possessed a key,
as though
someone had told you my secrets
long before we met.

Sixteen thousand words
cross the vermilion border
seven billion times a day,
yet not a single one
knows exactly where it's going.

The wind is rattling my windows and me-- 
my thoughts tumble across the prairie
like restless weeds, like bored, unruly children;
the newsman says the tornadoes 
are gone, and this fierce wind
is what they left behind.

I carried too much with me
coming west--now I know
that part of moving on
is casting off--
and even though I just let go
the well-worn sofa--
the old camelback still wearing
its lovely cat-fur coat--
I plan on Sunday afternoons
lounging in the Reading Room--
the heart of Meerkerk Garden--
to cozy up in my old, grey raft--
hoping to discover some new
azalea, rhododendron, camellia,
some new species of songbird,
some new genus of light.

You can't just cobble several words together 
and call it the longest word in the English language
and yet they do. .  .
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
even has a volcano in it.

The curtain rises
different time
different place
every day.

I would like fifty people to attend my funeral. . .
I'm not dead yet--it's not one of those stories,
though they do appeal to me. . .an entire life
should produce thousands, but it almost never does. . .
fifty is a respectable showing. . .
twice that would be formidable.

A day without substitution,
no subtitle, no subtext,
buttermilk pure,
not made
with vinegar.

At the bookstore I will read David Kirby's "House on Boulevard Street"
and laugh aloud. . . I will read David Shumate's prose poems
and cry about Kafka's love life. . . I will read the new issue of "Poetry"
and not buy it because I believe they are poetry snobs:  snobs, 
I tell you. . .I will stop looking up. . . I will hum with the fluorescent lights. . .
I will smell fresh-baked cookies and have willpower. . .
my heart will begin to beat with the barista's claps on the espresso machine
and poetry will save me again, I just know it.

The house we left behind came back
online, back on the market;
the young soon-to-be-weds
who bought it--full price!
(How could they afford a home
that we'd spent half our lives
slowly working up to?)--
no longer seem to want it:
Could it be because we wouldn't
sell it to them furnished, complete
with all the things we'd carefully
arranged, all the things they wanted
us to leave behind because they craved
the look of an easy, well-made life?

The computer-generated male voice droned on
about the number of Kansas tornadoes
per year, where they were,
and how many people had perished;
the computer-generated female voice
broke in now and then
to give ominous weather warnings,
over and over the cycle repeated--
the male spoke of facts,
the female:  possibilities.  

The still at the very center?
The vertigo-inducing outer ring?
Or maybe the made-up stories
of what lies between.

Sometimes in an afternoon,
there are no words
for the nagging unreachable,
so you breathe deep 
into the nothingness
and let it wash over you.

The storm rises,
threatening to take
all we didn't bother
to lash down
with words.

She realized that, unlike before, 
there was only one road ahead--
there were no choices to be made,
just a solitary road to follow, 
alone.

There is little to do but imagine
the Lyrid meteor shower
promised to peak tonight
behind a mask of clouds,
unless you consider the woods
filled with the common salmonberry,
Rubus spectabilis, in bright magenta
bloom, offering countless sprays
of its own shooting stars.

If I came upon my center now,
would we still recognize
one another?

The blazing white elderberry
dazzles the morning air
with so much gag-inducing
sweetness that even the honeysuckle
will no longer recognize it as kin.

It's the weeds that are bothering me now--
they're threatening to consume the yard,
beneath the soft carpet of grass are sod webworms
     and grubs
sometimes it seems as if nothing has a chance here.

What will it mean when
we are no longer surprised
by the inevitable spring?

What she remembered most from those old days
were the country roads. . .how lovely they were 
in their run-down, weather-beaten condition,
how the alligator weed and zoysia grass grew 
and threatened to overtake the roads. . .
how they had just enough traffic 
to keep them going.

The air is netted, ripe and green
with pollen--a hundred million
fetishes insinuating themselves
into each and every word
we utter, think, or write.

Pulling the sheet and quilt 
over her shoulders 
and rolling onto her right side,
she would easily be sleeping
within seconds--or if not,
in a kind of dreamy 
cocoon state--sleep,
delicious sleep, 
her grand escape.

If there is a world within the world
it's likely not this blue-green egg
fallen from its nest in the rafters,
cold now--yet without a single
blemish--which we will place
in the china cabinet
next to all the other
could-have-been-perfect worlds.

They say one of the symbolic messages of the robin
is to let go of all that is not working in your life; 
c'mon Mr. Robin, fly me to a new beginning.

High tide and an April squall
arrive simultaneously in Penn Cove,
creating a mesmerizing labyrinth
of sheeting rain and white caps,
but below the flotilla of rafts
rocking and rolling on the surface,
ropes of world-famous mussels
slumber and grow, suspended
in the stunning cold,
dreaming of their futures
in warm, brothy bowls.

In fiction, it is said, there are a limited number of plot variations;
in non-fiction, however, the possibilities seem endless. . .
so tell me, which are you living?

A juvenile god,
not yet clear
which way to go
to stun the local population,
the eaglet soars
higher,
higher,
higher still, until
it's nothing more
than a hangnail in the sky.

We turned somersaults and cartwheels 
and ran headlong into the future 
reaching for all we thought we needed,
believing we had all the time in the world,
until the world showed us that our days 
were numbered. . .and the things we needed 
were simple and few.

The winds
stir
the trees
stir
the clouds
stir
every conceivable sunset
into tonight's
blood moon.

Essence of hyacinth and honeysuckle, 
then a flourish of Bradford pear--
soon after forsythia and daffodils
begin their yellow waltz,
the redbud trees gush
as the tulips preen
and the fire bush greens
as the world fairly blazes 
with spring.

Dropped to his knees, his bandaged hand
cupped inside the other, he looks pained,
injured all over again,
but the object of his concern this time
is not his hand but what he's holding
in his hand--
a pearl white hummingbird,
swaddled in spider silk,
unable to fly;
we silently go to work on it,
swiftly tearing loose the sticky shroud
from wings and bill and flashing eyes,
but before we can get the last thread
free, the bird simply vanishes, leaving us
just enough color for argument,
male or female, rufous or Anna's,
real or imagined.

There is a language I can no longer speak
due to my years on the planet--one would think
that would garner me more privileges 
rather than less. . .alas, my 11-year-old
informs me these words are meant
for the young and hopelessly cool
(I won't give that one up)
of course, they're not really words 
at all, most are mere acronyms 
for those too busy to use 
all of the beautiful words
we have been given--
I accept my fate.  

So much can be accomplished
in a three-hour queue
waiting for a broken ferry--
read the day's mail,
yesterday's too,
write a few replies,
install new wiper blades,
install them again,
properly this time,
then sit back and listen
to the car behind you
remind you
that you're not waiting
fast enough.

The snowfall made no difference
to the tulips:
they lift their exquisite faces
to the sky,
they sway and flash 
their coral brilliance
and dance contentedly
in the cold, cold wind.

Oh, to be the blessed bagel,
whole unto itself,
surrounding nothing
from its absolute beginning,
skin anointed in lye,
and so unlike the tender donut
skimmed from a vat
of boiling oil,
forever missing
its soft, sweet center.

First there is broccoli and cabbage, 
then peppers and kale. . .
there is lettuce and spinach 
and Swiss chard. . .
how I hover like a mother
over her little ones each day,
how I love the sweet and gentle
magic of a garden.

This cycle of dreams
begins in any one
of many houses we have
left behind--two that survived
Quantrill's raid, several more
built later--and in every single one
steep steps rise
past broken windows,
bleak and battered attics,
before opening into a hidden
planetarium of starlings.

How much lighter my burdens 
when I feel the warmth of the sun
upon my shoulders.

How many more resignation letters
(So many require a handwritten note!)
before I stop playing Beat the Clock
and learn what it's like to just be the clock?

The news is not good
the news is speculation
the news is scandalous
the news is ridiculous
the news is horrifying
everything is the news
how to separate news
from the not-so-newsworthy
everyone wants 
to pick up the news
and bite into it
to check its authenticity
everyone wants today's 
news to go away
they push it 
into the recesses 
of the body
to make it through 
the day.

Why is the world
inside this house
so attractive to things
that don't belong?
Do they see here the mirror
of their own confusion?
Or have we created
our own subduction zone,
drawing things beyond
control slowly under.

Some days you must chip away 
the small branches so that 
the rest of the tree 
fits into your life.

Midges drift like clouds
of black pepper
from beneath the bark
of a sodden madrona,
beached, like us,
waiting for the tide
to return with the whales.

He lines up the timbers carefully
I pull weeds and turn the dirt,
mulch dried leaves and sing a song,
a smile in my heart:
it's time to sow seeds 
and seedlings--
time to believe 
in sympathetic magic 
and sunshine.

I tiptoe past the small symmetries
of the morning, trying to preserve
the balance that will allow
the Bohemian waxwing to stop this time
before diving headlong into the pane.

The homes of the people I like best
have cobwebs; I check out a corner
to see if they are living. . .
and not just pretending.

Everything else is just
the dream of order.

And when there are no more words
we can listen to the silence,
we can listen to the broken
shadow of the moon.

My grandmother from the Old Country
would never understand
the things I allow in my house--
a black cat napping on the kitchen table,
work without an apron,
rain falling under an open umbrella,
the strangeness surrounding
each family member
finally returning home.

Have you written your poem today--
have you sung your lovely song?

"I believe I hear jail.  And the electricity went off.
Spring in Kansas--for joy."
[My dear Marcia:
I found the poem
you left on your wall,
and I have stolen it.]

When I have something to do,
I do something else--this is my style--
and, as I do something else, I worry
about what I should be doing; 
I am habitually late--I bet 
you know people like me--
we carry the weight of the world
on our shoulders as we apply
mascara in the rearview mirror
and drink coffee on the way,
and some day, this 
disjointedness will kill us.

A double rainbow
crashes over the mountain
like a runaway train
rushing the station at dusk.

You finish your sentence, 
and she gives you the look,
lips pursed as she lifts her chin,
as she begins to speak, 
to show you she knows 
something, and definitely
more than you do.

Only the search will last.

My words left me;
now I walk aimlessly, 
carrying a pocketful
of letters in search
of a moment.

Our injured hands bookend
everything we hold
with pulsing constellations
of nerve and resolve.

The robin and the blue jay squared off this afternoon:
the robin so plump he appeared to be tilted
as he hopped across the grass
then abruptly stopped as is his habit;
the jay, averting his eyes as though  
he did not see the robin before him
pushed ahead boldly,
but robin stood his ground,
likely having heard the rumor 
that jays eat eggs and nestlings--
blue jays are actually vegetarians,
but you know how rumors are. . .
the jay raised his wings in flight.

Unfinished drawings don't mind
being left out in the damp,
having a little wine
spilled on them from time to time;
this merely serves to enliven
the ink, make the images think
they can complete themselves.