April Aubade

When you finally
sleep with the
window open in
a century old

house, the itch
of April enters,
a highway breathes
through, trains woo

darkly westward. Come
morning, wood pecker
drills a hole
into your waking

mind. A pin
of light shines.
Air sucks your
closed door against

its frame, trying
to make a
path through you.
Wood knocks wood.

Your metal mechanism
clicks in its
lock, hinges almost
creak. Everything begs

a thin opening.

featured in The Telluride Watch, April 2011

bowl of curlless words

my bowl so full, pours into yours.
dear brother, drink.
hold out your hands, wash your face
in this dripping mirror.
before slipping through, I see you,
believing,
though by circumstance,
and love’s strange
chance, always already leaving.

April 1st Haiku

Today, usual
foolishness: I love you, though
there is no end to

Midwestern College Town: Decatur, Illinois

Earth spreads out around its brick proud ivory
towers and old neighborhood mansions, beneath small

box businesses, run-down dusty houses and four factories.
Outside, wide fields and leaning barns. Low white winter

sky over all.  A shaggy earnest student waiter with pizza
shifts foot to foot, sweet eyed, guesses you’re not

from around here anymore, and the proud
father in orange Illini sweatshirt, clapping

at the open mic, turns to you with smiling
eyes, inquiring, tell me where you are

from. His landlocked twang lies low
to earth, a warm midwestern fondling

of words and slow, thoughtfully round
as a brown clay pot waiting to be filled

with your story, eager to fill you with the
rich soil of his bright son’s cornfed dreams.

between sky and ground

up ahead, east,
an isolated rain
cloud bruised
beneath its glowing
white peaks drops
a wash
of ink that doesn’t
touch down, just
floats, like me,
indefinitely

writing haiku on a low wall

Spider seeking light
pounces on my white paper.
I jump, let him write.

Lot’s wives

God has burnt
us down so
many times while
we run screaming
from the flames.
But we are
no phoenix rising
again. We always
turn to watch
the walls fall,
the golden licking
up of sky.
It is done.
We freeze: columns
of salt. Rain
comes, melts away
regret for what
cannot be gotten
back. Earth turns
saline swallowing us.
Years pass before
we grow again:
tall trees some
man will harvest
to build his
city. If only
we would stop
turning to see
turning to grieve
turning to leaves,
perhaps we could
find out who
we could be,
stop following him,
walk quietly away,
while Lot keeps
running, too weary
to stop to
chasten or save.

Were your eyes wet?

I don’t recall.
It was dark
and I was

trying to be
the red cotton
sheet, trying to

move my feet
away from yours
just an inch

where there was
warmth but not
skin. I don’t

recall hearing you
sniff and sniff,
but there was

shaking and I
don’t recall caring
whether you were

cold from the
outside or cold
from far within,

my subzero disappointment
seeping into your
chest between breaths.

I don’t recall
falling asleep but
I did, and

I am still
trying to wake
up from you

or to you
or to fall
deeper into the

cold inside your
tears until you
wake up too.

Kate Chopin’s Women

When you can’t listen to any more
love songs and the ones in your head

have begun to fade, and your lover has stopped
singing about you, and reticent letters have come

to an end, and your children are seldom
adorable, and your husband only

a friend, disappointment gently gives
way to weightless, faceless grace.

There is nothing to be unmade. Nothing
about which to be jaded.  Nothing

from which to run.  Nothing
for which to wait.  Unsolved,

you just stay. Watch
the day.  Play at words.

Maybe pray to recall
how to love in this strange

place, or at the edge
of your mind, swim away.

2007/2011