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