5/31/16

streetlight burning
in a shard of mirror
like a candle smoking
low
on the sidewalk





5/30/16

grandpapa pillbug
rises from a turned dirt,
slateblue back atremble
with the huff and bluster 
of an old man's wag





5/29/16

the city unfolds
in the rain, breathing
great gasps of grey sky

i am wet footed in all this
rippling, rushing water





5/28/16

when sweat
gloves
your naked back

lay against the cool rock
find where the trees meet





5/27/16

groggy with rowhouse heat
we watch the yellow afternoon 
sink and melt like butter

in the corners of the room,
cast-iron walls sizzle nightfall 





5/26/16

tonight Mars
looks pale -
a feral rabbit
catching moon
in her ashy pelt





5/25/16

praying

the new plant
takes root

the car makes it
up the hill home





5/24/16

the body as a
whetstone, eschewing
the dingy rungs of bone:

hone the mind
to a shimmering edge





5/23/16

thud boom music
from one street over
and the last robin
staking his claim
at eight pm





5/22/16

little family
limply curled under
blankets, heads in laps

illness ties our thread tight -
such comfort in the web of kindness





5/21/16

umbrellaless,
we walk furred
with rain - weary beers
are worth the wet,
our soppy flirt





5/20/16

curdled milk -
the low spread of clouds
covering your lap
i pick you up, sweet-heart
& carry you into the house





5/19/16

the sparrows are fledging
but I'm tired of old tropes -

so here is the doe, cornered
between jersey barriers,
her casual walk
                           her last seconds





5/18/16

my legs move
tireless, dog-team
sharp with the memory
of childbirth and
moonlessness





5/17/16

let the morning 
kettle boil over -
split slices of
still-warm bread
and find the sun





5/16/16

family stones
wide as headboards
part the cemetery grass

here sleeps he, she
here grows a quiet seed





5/15/16

the baby turns
in his cot, dream-wise

downstairs we pour
liquor over ice,
toast the quiet end of sunday





5/14/16

pale pelted
suckling ghost
slips under the fence

vanishes like
a mote
             eyeblink





5/13/16

i saw bones
in the house 
seize, stutter

   \/\/\/

i saw you
drip like rain





5/12/16

don't cry;
i know how to carry
your big cracked jar

it weeps water
but holds light





5/11/16

i drink my cup dry
then squat, stranded
in the wet glass 
like a froglet
forgotten in a child's pail





5/10/16

paste-moth women
stain the wallpaper
with spit and scale

moonblind low orbit
panic of starvation




5/9/16

they pulled the willows
from the river
                       quivering
rods snapping underfoot
like reeds     like wooden bones





5/8/16

larva wisdom:

       life is
       blind anticipation

       the earth is
       coarse and full of tunnels





5/7/16

it hit the window screen
with a bang
and plummeted into the
gray matrix of dusk -

a moment erased





5/6/16

the earlybird crowd
buzzes sepia

brushfire wheezes
by the highway
far from this cold beer





5/5/16

in rain-slashed 
violet dusk

thunderheads float
down the rivers

like barges, heaped with coal





5/4/16

crawl through the wet dark
feeling newly blind 
or newly born, unfolding-

down the street her hips 
sing sweetly to themselves





5/3/16

after every rain
the glass mountain
pours down blessings -
silt-swollen palmfuls,
broken saucers & bones





5/2/16

our room cowers, rotten stray
caught in the pour of black water
and sky-flung stones

lightning - swift parasite - seeps in,
multiplies and eats the walls alive





5/1/16

he wakes up in the parking lot
sweat-marked and lowly afraid
moaning no no no no

I open the door & show him
wide fields thick with violets