To Unbloom

Lute-sown
Seed too deep to root
Too raw
To be exhumed
Waits for promise
To unbloom
While overhead
A garden swoons.

2014

Man in the Moon

The full moon
Doesn’t ponder
Unpaid bills.

It is no silver dollar,
heavy breast or milk.
Its halo is no silver ring.

Likewise, it is no tumor,
empty pocket,
Zeus’ oculus.

No wish fulfilling jewel,
It doesn’t shrink in poverty
Or play the lottery.

We do.

2014

once his heart

once his heart
was her nest
they murmured
like corn
over broken barn
answers born
in mud and sky
for river light
and quiet cows

2014

How a Book Becomes Lascaux

Mistaken for words,
I am pictures of sound,
and sound— pictures of talking flesh.
I break from the hand.

From ochre spit
to scribbled script to screen, sans serif
Ariel usurping time’s new Roman,
black curled, looped and deaf.

However drawn, my pages get inside,
paint worlds on your rough walls.
If someone lit a fire in you,
prehistory would revolve.

2014

Mirror, Mirror

I don’t know what frames me
Or how I lean.

I can’t see myself.

When you look at me,
you see only you.

If you want the truth,
look at me.

Can you say what force contains me?
I will tell you what I see.

You in the room wearing red,
White scarf, blue jeans, black vest.

You have a body this week.
You are pacing.

Glancing at air with friends.
No more. No less.

I don’t know what you are writing.

Whatever it is,
It is not about me.

2014

A Mile in Me

Skin of duality.
Empty dream of feet.
Pour your pair into me.

We’ll amble shores
Where bare soles tremble.
Black stone beach.

Cactus bloom gorge.
Waterproof vault
In a wet cemetery.

2014

Her Death

There was no lightning to announce
Her death, though her eyes shot wide
And clear into a sun we couldn’t see.
Freed from sight, she did not squint.

In unison our heads fell back, wailing
Like Picasso’s horse, having just lost
The quiet war. There was no exit sign
In the upper corner of the room.

Her name never flashed in lights
To celebrate the way she moved like water
Wheeling her IV, saint in a loosely tied sheet,
Old child playing a bare-assed ghost.

When she floated away, her body
A cold stone, we too were stones
Swallowed by a lost river
Rubbing us small and smooth.

2014

Barnyard Light the Professor

Please have your fingers prepared
To take notes in the dirt.
Even though the moon,
Sharper than I, distracts you,
Pretend to be writing.
Today we will discuss hyperbole.
Consider yourselves, crouched there
Like clocks. Your long darkness—
An arm counting eternity.

2014

Hippocampus

Our seahorse
unbound
from steady center
bled a slow sound
like low blood sugar.
Sad to be found
in loss, we hum
with the singing wound,
tails clinging.

2014

Barnyard Light the Brother

Though half-joking you
Call me the murder light,

The murderer lurks
In your own masked skull.

I’m only half sorry my shine
Skips your shade helter skelter

When the barn’s darkest thought
Out-paces your heart

And your stomach thrills
Safe at the farmhouse door.

2014