i revise the back room / in which i think it may have happened, / i dissipate the dark / that must have been induced // i revise the thick braid of hair / he might have palmed / he might have coiled / twice around his wrist // i revise / the finger he put / across her lips / and later i revise the rain / so it stops adoring the sheen of cracked headstones // i revise the record / so it carries the names / of everything responsible for the birth // i revise the syrup of secrets / thinning the rice pap // first thing they feed to a child
Into the Open
an empty space is still data
my phone reminds me
no space is truly empty
a falling leaf reminds me
the time of long shadows
has come ‘round again
cedar waxwings whistle
through bare branches
the low sun catches on wings
in lieu of leaves
rests in a red oak
undressing in the wind
and flickers like an angel
resisting temptation
to follow the leaves down
spinning spiralling
or rocking back and forth
like a cradle
if only i could sleep
and leaf out when i wake
clinging to hope makes us
as empty as the future
let the earth take
its own sweet time
let this glory
be enough
Poem with No “Real” Assets
Absinthe, flavored with anise— Van Gogh's cafe table,
bordered with windowframes, looks out on the street.
Carafe of water, but no spoon or sugar cube in sight.
Did he drink it undiluted; no sharing, on his own?
Every morning I rise from a mattress that's seen better days.
Flame-leaved, the light this time of year; or milky—
glass in which the green liqueur settles toward the bottom.
Harbor is still a state I aspire to. Or home. Not that
I haven't worked hard to make one here; but there's
just no word to describe the condition of a kind of statelessness,
knowing you can't put your name on a title for a piece of
land, here or in any there. You shell out the nearly 2 grand
mortgage monthly, tell yourself it's not all going down the drain;
not too shabby to now be part of that demographic
of first-time "homeowners," though your 3BR, 2BR +
patio has no garage, only a gravel driveway. There's no
question the bank still owns it, keeps a tight
rein on this semblance of The American Dream.
Someday, perhaps, you'll figure it out—
the way others seem to have gamed it, gracefully and
unscathed. But that painted prism of green spirit,
veins of stippled light going through every surface—
Wasn't that what you really wanted? Time to carve
xylographs, rub their surfaces with dense color,
yield nothing to whatever warps the dream. You run a quiet
zipper around these thoughts, tending them carefully.
https://morningporch.com/2022/11/159129628/
Grace
buzzing on the autumn mountain
an amber alert
a child gone missing
in the middle of my daydream
railroad workers 400 feet below
pause and look at their phones
every morning now
it’s a different landscape
i go home and cut my hair
the missing girl is found
two notes from a wren
get lodged in my inner ear
***
Photo and poem from one week ago.
I come from
the channel in the gorge blankets of moss an exhalation of pigs before slaughter red-dyed cotton cords that keep the dead upright drops of rice wine stolen from the lips of the anito alphabets of coagulated blood swimming in hot broth the hollow of ringing space between mortar and pestle a kind of dancing which others mistake for shuffling high winds sculpting ledges where we'll rest in time
On Night Watch
the moon over my shoulder
is already half-lit
i turn my hand palm-up
it fills with starlight
flying squirrels scold
in an ethereal key
i’m sitting beneath their
favorite mother oak
i take a deep breath
of autumn soil fragrance
a whitetail buck grunts
more as if in pain than in lust
there’s a thunder of hooves
then nothing
a dead leaf drops
into my hand
the trees continue
their strategic withdrawal
Daylight Saving
As if we could. As if the solution to every problem is a man who can sharpen your dullest kitchen knives at the farmers market, or the sandwich you made on Monday but that you forgot on Tuesday was supposed to keep your gut happy, or a pillow in the shape of cheese strings is less pathetic than one in the shape of a swan, or the leave entry form you filled in with the words No Leaves Taken = more hours called Vacation— As if we are allowed.
Encore
insects of smoke
slick as silkworms
weaving their own
winding sheets
a warmish night brings
them out again
those that still chirp
those that still trill
out of sheer habit
by now i suppose
i remember one of
today’s enigmas
i was waved at
by a dead leaf
attached to an unrelated
dead tree
it was a jaunty wave
of course i returned it
