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.