like a bird flying
past the window you
notice in the corner
of your no let’s
assume it was a bird and
the little early
spring flowers by
bending
down to
look blue
white purple you want to
reach for it
but don’t
want to scare
away that thought
running down the corridor
rattling
every knob
like one of the
doomed you
root for
in a horror movie
xxxxx
once the image has life an emptiness says
it will always be so I stare into the distance
blind to trees and flowers
begging to be born but the refrigerator hey
are we doing stream of consciousness
cool and the snow gets sharp in these
huge piles in the back of the lot
days later my handwriting
starts to rot never to recover
xxxx
suicide off the table you start working again
with a miniature saucepan and the clock trying
to rid the mind of all the rules you’ve
made &
feel your hand tight around the thick
rope now only good for that
silly exercise you love
xxxx
away from the neighbor’s dog
across stinging fields we grow
smaller so slowly we don’t
notice until grasshopper parts become
our yard sticks and blades
of grass jostle and topple us in this
dream-familiar landscape we
learn secrets of slow growth, the rootlike
lineages of wormkind and a love
of the sweetness that writhes up from
dark earth and we long to pass
it on to our children who have
grown monstrous in the orange light
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
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
scars of store names where once flowers
how many times have I written the letter over these barren rocks listing flowers in the year’s afternoon a dislocation of fog ferments
she laughs as the pink purple flowers of wild mint might
this tender wound from which flowers hope it never heals
October
what flowers are left
lie down
one day you and I and all these flowers
other animals 