after talk of labyrinths longing to see the ocean
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Sunday afternoon while light won’t stop streaming past the sudden silence of unbroken bare trees and what apologies to make while the ink dries and the thinking machines reset in the year of our lady redacted
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in the forest where they planned that nasty surprise tiny flowers try to take over the world fish look surprised and sure he was never one to
and what could we do but invite him if we were going to the summer house as you waited with the light straight down from the clouds in planks and the ducks looking like they’ve lived through worse though
the party that night with everyone still feeling a bit raw from the afternoon staring into their drinks waiting for someone to mention going to bed so we could say oh yes what a good idea me too
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we’ll call glossolalia. But we heard the true story before the wake whose skeleton, preserved in lucite on three continents, is a beacon for the new converts
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it’s difficult looking for words to force into little gems (jams?) & not look out the window and write something about this shade of blue sky just before spring
weeks of precious concentration later how to know if there’s anything or a tunnel that collapses with the slightest shake
you want to go back even as you put one foot forward and choose a different color sock hat excuse though it’s best to keep walking and say you started differently
in the end if it lets you step into the dark more easily what would it be like but never mind get back to digging or we’ll never get out
tomorrow is the word you’re looking for which means both hope and hopeless the black of space the restless sun
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some cloudy mornings it’s the feel of the favorite pen in your hand you charge off not caring about a cracked phone screen the band-aid covering bone the stomp of the neighbor through the ceiling hope and calm caught in little chunks we string together to make a necklace though perhaps even that was a way to dig down to the level of the excavation you needed to see with its as yet untranslated script and inscrutable editorial cartoons which they say
the flowers this year will be late and unequivocal
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a day like today with the remains
of glaciers packed up and destined
for delicate display cases rough
wind in the chimney a red
glow deep inside flaky
grey on what shall I bingebut so on with the sound that folds you like an
origami cockroach forget all those things you shouldn’t
eat when I try to stitch it all together
a trail of buttons sharp stones fall from my eyea sentimental clip show gently tempers
the fear of cancellation and too long out of town
it shows in those shoes I won’t tellstart again and say something that won’t reflect
the stabbing pain behind the eye where you
feel the rumble from his but let’s talk
about the upcoming electionleft with my broken devices in the morning and
coffee to decide what to call the deep blue
before the sun comes up on the loop of those
stupid things I said enough for a Netflix
series though at least I wasn’t alone
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brushes her red inclination against the trembling milk of it
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My device displays the estimated time it will take to finish this chapter 29 minutes to 32 to 43 minutes a minute later. I see the children of my children’s children and the joy on their faces as they finish the prologue.
Saturn at dawn on the wind could be my voice as a child
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News Feed
hoping for something chocolate
covered hurry up wait what
was I saying the shorelines
shorten birds
gone from the sky
due to a
lack of how’s it with you those
headaches back I have just the
oil and volcanoes waiting
maybe for & the
coasts blame the
center and vice versus the
scattered poems to stitch it all
but we’re in it together
did you hear
what the final
butterfly
whispered as your phone oh I’m
no better I just like to
talk and that sting in your should
you maybe
check out the dog
filter that
clown one does nothing for you
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in time but not space
the world too bright and crawling
the long grass in my nose I long
for the fractured web of lightning a new
apartment in a cheap cheerful town
where stores aren’t closing on
our knuckles the stain of spilled ink where
the sky darkens most is your birth
mark the tiny gem they can’t take from
you the prize in a cereal box cool
breeze in summer yet the fall
from this balcony would surely stop
you can’t think like that at least
that’s what his t-shirt said
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before sleep
little storms in my jawbone
squirrels in my fingerson which the secret fall
falls onwillows and other
memories sold
the fairy tale homea trail of stars
to shelter fresh
organs made of glasswho needs all this change for the
better bury me in styrofoamthe song crickets compose ever new light blue stars
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morning clean a free breeze bruises still there but in soft light something about omelets better coffee perhaps a walk in that park we’ve been meaning all through the day carry a small splinter that sparkles later in the meeting we easily talk about our supposed subject matter though the shadow of the looms large we still laugh cobble jokes from horrible headlines and yes I saw your post and clicked the appropriate button but tomorrow I will unfollow you
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a fish through the hands will write a list of future accomplishments gulp the last tepid tea and remember I’m somehow the narrator though my training is in watch repair once a thriving industry in days when many people were killed by and these days you don’t know who to believe when you take your pants off but that’s the way it’s always been at least when you climb that tree to look at the moon you can just remember the sound of the first sparrow through her curls
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I say the name but hidden in brown fields green peeks its head around the corner. She lets the light back slowly as ever. We are heavy with eggs. Nests being assembled. The wide water is clear and dark and deep inside something undeniable stirs.
trying to hold on to one thing in the mind with hands too small
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build a little temple in the well of the clavicle golden light honey fig bread wine maybe this book will run through the clouds we see tending to the is it only animals who live on the mountain
storm in the forecast & all these chapped lips for the best adverbs to fry up this or any other burger so why does it have to fill up the whole page ants build cities with mouths as small as we could wish for
where a tooth unrecognized as rotten should worms long to chew as though a star covered in gauze in the forest shout what from the shadow of a younger life of a beneath centipedes cry and yes still these empty hands in the snow
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other people’s postcards
and the problems you carried from home but
with new hats in the shop they said you
must visit after something muttered
about the mountain air some vista orchirps back and forth in brightening dark cold coffee
though later and once the music mercifully
stopped and after the little chapel was
broken down and the beams
turned into pens for disappointed
tourists the sound of the little fountain
carried us
awayif we knew where we might go the precious
shell the shadow inside
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just the normal kind of socially sanctioned stupid. Nothing vicious. Just someone who’s looking for. Sure, I could give you some advice, but you’d never take me seriously with this haircut and the auction’s about to end. That’s the thing about our planet at this late stage—outbid again—damn. What’s a person have to do to—what was I saying? Something about how it sticks in your eye and can sometimes catch the light just right & a rainbow—what’s that? No, you’d never make it. They watch our every move
other animals 