7/31/16

sometimes you
fall to dust

sometimes you
bloom the small roses
of august

7/30/16

leaves overlap, lightly lick
each other's spine
and rain
                     
                      parts them
                      like an animal
                      slithering into a hole

7/29/16

mousehole altar
plugged mutely into
the hillside

tchotchkes multiply
in the stone grotto

7/28/16

in the shower
he rubs his eyes
with a wet fist

baby hair
black snake tendril

7/27/16

thunderhead sunrise:
fuming orange curled
under the tongue of dawn
and pink streaks westward -
meteors, banners, lofted praise

7/26/16

the light on the porch
melting from blonde
to pink
to blue
to black

7/25/16

a simmering snarl

that gains mass

and grows fangs -

dog day 

crescendo

7/24/16

driving, thighs clenched
around a cup of ice
                         
melting,
that sweet

bite

7/23/16

muggy noon

lugging an armful

of books

i need a beer, and

a few empty hours

7/22/16

slogging through
the soaking rain

your mouth pressed
to my wet shoulder

half-sleep half-love

7/21/16

when obligation lifts
and it feels
like a hole


in a
fire-gutted roof

7/20/16

summer tableau:
       beer        strawberries
 
   and colored glass
             

                    an evening hung
                       like the moon

7/19/16

tilt your
maelstrom mouth
to the wind
howl
nonononono

7/18/16

after a dim day

in the sickroom

the sky explodes, mammoth,

dogging my steps

with dazzling vibration

7/17/16

laughing, he pops
champagne
in the dark yard

so the baby
won't wake

7/16/16

unkept mandala
of weeds and wildflowers
cartwheeling behind the church:

buttonheaded chamomile,
great shaggy heaps of lavender

7/15/14

you set to sea

in your little boat

left ashore, I cradle

stray screws

in my warm palm

7/14/16

he steadies his weight

on my flexed foot -

I am elephantine, hoisting

a sweet-faced starlet

with my wrinkled nose

7/13/16

we count down another

heat-glazed afternoon

our hair curled 

with sweat

and dozy naps

7/12/16

a poem doesn't
need much

the baby splashes
in three inches of
lukewarm tub water

7/11/16

bees hum
figure 8s over
the gravel pit

digging holes
mouth-first

7/10/16

feeling my age

in a basement café,

walls hemmed with 

vocal fry and 

coconut milk

7/9/16

pull the bowstring tight,
sinew thick with suspension
suddenly sprung -
thrum and blood
thrum and blood

7/8/16

he looks just like you
she says, but we all carry
our mother's germ

sometimes it emerges years later,
like a dormant snail suddenly wet

7/7/16

swollen clouds
pass overhead,
refuse us rain
like a gravid pet cat
squeezing under the fence

7/6/16

we kneel on the rug
and count the words
he knows by heart: hi bye
yellow blue green no
yes mama home

7/5/16

kitchen clouded with
steam and your hands
worn to runged bone

break bread and eat crumbs
sow corn and reap crows

7/4/16

drink swiftly;
rain-soaked backyards
don't last, firecrackers
don't last, we
boom gone

7/3/16

diner lit golden 

syrup, amber glass

dust-slung wall

above the percolator

thick with deer heads

7/1/16

sunlit swath of color
buzzing, neon electric
atop those steely clouds;
Iris laughs, leaping over
the grey roof of the city