In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

that keeps these soggy woods soggy
under a ponderous gray sky. Where
is the props man? Have him haul up

that sky and lower one in a more
pleasing color: multi-flora. You have
no idea what it takes to sustain

this effort, to remember (I carry
four flesh stumps held to a piece
of gauze by the silver prong

of a safety pin). Tip the bucket
over, let the little stippled fish
swim to the moon. Take it back,

clean its insides of kelp
and constricted tissue. Use it as
a cup from which to drink today

like a woman who isn’t a mother:
just a woman, just a girl who wants
to sit in this chair with no need

to get up real soon, who wants warm
light to love all of her back, who
wants a sip of cold clear water.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

and pierced with holes: through
it, the light shines— like

ornament, like a bauble wrapped
in foil. Its cold fluted layers

gleam and pleat, like the halo
of a small town saint who’s made

good and come back to a hero’s
welcome: so many tokens at her

feet, so many supplicants in
parade. The traffic never stops

at her wayside shrine: bring me
back my lover, my daughter, my

mother, that life of promised
ease. Here, in exchange, all

these glittering anatomies:
fingers, arms, legs; an eye,

an ear— parts we would lop
off gladly; if only, if only.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

mixed with bile; and I
have known what humbling
mouthfuls of sacrifice,

what burn of years and
their slow toil down
the gut. So let me now

taste new-fallen
snow, dissolving un-
complicated on the tongue.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

black ink find you and mark you.
May your left hand pluck and pluck

at the thorn in your breast and may
the right hand stay it. May your bones

drift far out to sea like a ship without
bearings. May you stride over the hills

just like you used to do, vowing never
to return; may the road make it true.

May the child’s call in the house
gone quiet, be nevermore for you.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

They say it’s quiet in the lull
of a storm, in the heart of chaos.
There are pockets of air in the dead
center of a piece of moldy bread;
and a shiny speck of copper where
rust and oil have not worn down
the coin. There are at least two
spaces between the gecko’s calls
—enough time for an engine
to sputter to life, for flame
to spurt out of the match; for
the faltering wheel to right it-
self, as it goes down the path.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

If the seeds of sorrow are sown
in the moment of joy, where are
the explosions of joy on the horizon,
from the multitude of sorrows sown?

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

how the small birds tremble
in drab grey-white, how they call

in small pebbled relay among halberd-
leaved tear-thumb, asters bordering

the ditch like fringed husks of stars—
Who would not be moved by their darting

and pleading, their search for a soft
place to burrow among the stones.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

edge of spoon rasps against dented
metal, and lunar hollows give off

a cold and mineral light. From here,
the sky’s a bordered rim the eye

might skim, for the skin of passing clouds.
Now I’m anxious even for the sound of wind

or rain, the branches’ waking rattle,
downpour of warm remembered sun;

then by degrees the rising sap
like honey in the veins of trees.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

and yellow— all those moldering leaves
like torches lit for their glow, like lamps

whose wicks are dipped in tallow. For company,
only the nearby gurgle of a stream, the even

crunch of gravel. Solitude’s silver and blue
arrow streaks toward you, lodging like a piece

of ice under your skin. Fragments of salt
that lace the wind. Memory of others

come and gone, their spirits nudging you
toward wherever it is you need to be.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.