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?