I am a dog walker I am cooking beans I am the misprint in the formula I am heavy snow at night the scrape of the plow I am bored and ashamed of my boredom I am eating cashews pecans sunflower seeds I am a deer of seven tines I am the sluggish pulse I am a new sound in the deep forest just once I am an empty bag of highly flavored corn chips by the off ramp I am the mistake that leads to greatness I am a wave breaking on dark rock I am a wave breaking on sand

Having darkened my hand with dark ink in
an age when close and
distant are cloudy unaided having
made so much that no

body wants to eat I wait for the latest
historic storm and the
scrape and salt that wakes us too early
or too late

model mountains pen in
sugared cars I try to

lift the snow with a wave
of homemade rhythm into
sky like berries almost black

but do I fracture some rule with
this spell how many feet do I have

to long for long-lasting mud
and the birds who

visit though we won’t learn
their names this year

either but the tracks lead
to a curve turning

back on itself with a smile
the breath leaves

green leaves shake

so let’s finish off the crackers
and call them
cookies we can watch
a movie through the neighbor’s
window just
balance on this skull

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