Let's Face It

waking
under the gray water
of dawn

on my back
staring at the beams
of certain words

the memorized temple
formed face-to-face
on our knees

and my god
in that gaze
we are

unanimously
the well-shaped
apple tree

Let There Be

First fireflies

which mean nothing

except that June progresses in a way

making sense to those who tarry.

The fall of empires –

I am not as reckless as I may seem.

More anchors than lost vessels. Yet

sometimes one needs a beer

to wish a father Happy Father's Day. I'm not waiting

anymore for what is not mine.

A silver lining rounding ginger sunsets

dissected into unrealistic hues.

He wants

me with him tonight but I turn

towards the dark

towards the empty side the bed

towards a piss poor imitation of free will

under enlightenment's regime. Sandra Gilbert

makes bread and leaves it on my table.

Leave me on the table. Me, hewn from oak trees

and sky and water returning.

In the distance chainsaws

sound like children crying. Takers with the power

to give. The power to change.

The power to give the power

to those who want to eat more

than their share.

Light, let there be you.

You, let there be me.

Me, let it pass.

Knotted Up

a nickel mist
             parting
                    for the symbol offered
     by ghosts –

an arrow twisted
             in a Celtic knot
                     bobbing on the sea  

water split
              at my breast
                     and the cool glide
                                of time
feathers my cheek

  Around
         Toward
              Away

my ankles in his eddies
           my syllables on your shore

Famished Time

Barreling out of Detroit, two hawks

higher. All the bloated deer

with spindling legs and broken necks

lower. The funeral was an intimate affair.

An outsider's glance is worth what exactly?

I drove the car hard – 80 mph

when the music was right.

And the music is always right.

Play it. Drive it. Taste it.

Softer sweetness in cotton

candy disintegration – I make it home in time

to make time

for the one who spends time

staking pathways

in sand grains funneled 

in the head-over-heels

hourglass.

Ah tick-tock / ya don't stop / to the / tick-tock / ya don't stop

As a woman who is figuring it out that she has always had it figured out, she seems to suggest that her nakedness is part of seeing this though. And dearest timekeeper, she promises not to eat you until the end.

In a Way

I didn't expect – a half inch moon

                                                                        making up the difference.

Yet before all of that we (and by “we” I mean I)

                                                                                 watched the sun set

through the ears of a three-legged rabbit.

                                                                                                  In a way

the first time the fuzz

                                                               of his inner ear turned mango

is the first time we made

                                                                                                       love.

We've told that story before.

                                                   You ask for it every night when I go

to bed facing east, when I fall

                                                                      asleep on the right side

of the bed, when we sew the verge

                                                                   between what-if and was

and now. The Night Sky

                                                                                petunias tremble

in the backwash of the hungry three-legged rabbit.

                                                                                             In a way

you held me. This way.

Backwoods Bastard

after a few beers 

that taste of a dark forest 

and the words you wrote 

about dashboards and eagles and scrubby pines

I pray to that lumbering bear

who sleeps in the sky

and ask permission

to stay

Too Soon

daffodil hints
too soon
and

pine lashes
lowered to see
my immoderate fall

what unknowing is bared
in the cold
and love

when winter weight
lays down on me full length
and bird souls hang in the air

one may easily
mistake a tune
for salvation –

have you heard
the red-winged trill
too soon?

how my affection
is of no use
to the blackbird

how the fields will dream
in the sunshine

and deer curl
in grassy hamlets

when raindrops
shake the tulips
too soon . . .

no longer a distance
measured

or days counted
from autumn to spring

and no accurate arrow
pierces the heart
in hibernation

too soon

when today
is the only day
there is

Seawater

when you can do nothing but see
the un-walkable path, light glinting
unblemished by feet, but still
the way

winter

carves despair on one hand
redemption on the other, so hidden
for a time such as this

so stripped

we can't speak of it anymore
unlike the chickadees
or the cardinal couple
in the dying dogwood
off the west corner
of the house

and yet

this lovely curfew
remaining by
the sea

autumn
changing her favorite color
to red

a Golden Eagle
cutting the corpse-colored
sky

a resurrection
in his clawed landing
whereby

everything
is
everything 

I stagger

on the stepping stones

of sense –

how the river freezes around

the immovable

truth

the train's legato notes / leaving indigo's dawn / asleep in bed

cardinal kiss

the last first kiss

will be like cardinal prints

on 5 a.m. snow –

a lacy surprise melting

into dawn

folding paper blinds –
apologies met with light
yet I turn aside
for winter

on the lip
of your chalice - 
as close as
you will
allow

a monarch's flight
around the sugar maple - 
who is courting whom

the high made low 

prostrate
before October
again

a fleeting season
of prodigal
vows 

sable dissolving
into not-quite dawn –
I follow the wick
towards a peppery break
to face the hues of our stay 

stained glass morning
yielding shattered praises
before the storm - 

how light
will not be

kept

a thousand times a day
I rise and fall
in a few short notes - 
cardinals, crows, and chickadees