There is so much more sky
above the street i followed for years
from home to school.
Reflections of the changing blue
still caught in storm drains and roof tarps.
Staining the glass crowding the corners
where i used to catch up
to a yellow dog named Sam.
He was taken by sleep
and creaky hips
long before the wind
cracked the limbs of our trees.
A mottled brown cat
patterned like a lake
skipped by rocks in every direction
followed Sam with greater noise
and a harder peace.
The sun stays longer at their intersections now. 
Old growth never fully gave way.
But the wind took its leaves all the same.

At a beach on a coast
walking-distance
from my present home,
the wind cast rivulets
into the grains of sand.

In the shallow shadows,
I can see the gray
leading into yellow
Bleeding into its fellow.
Impossible to separate (or, at least, misleading).

So their togethered taupeness
will be sampled and classified
in a blue munsell book
with a breaking cover
I should've returned ages ago.

It's useful like this.
But did you know
a few pages away
you could find
the blue-green stain of my veins?

Why do I know this?
There are only so many ways,
after all, to fill the time
in the back of a truck in Georgia.
(Even fewer if you keep your seatbelt on.)

So chart my freckles next, darling.
Find a new slot and show me
how my skin
shares the same page as your own.
Just on a different row.

the scalloped skirts
of the biloba ballerinas
are furling while green
still paints the stems
of the stubborn soloists.

the maidenhair corps de ballet
flies from the wings
tutus golden to match the winter light.
curtains open on the new season.
the sidewalk audience stands

in ovation
and continues home.

Did you hear what I said?
So often/not yet.
But you responded all the same.
It seemed a better method
than to ignore and regret it.
What could've been if I'd known your name?
There's a chance you'll see me
another day. And we'll be
engaged in the new-old game
of predicting/amending.
We're better off listening.
But the thought of it's really quite lame.

tides pull greens through blues
perpetual sunsetting
at the golden gate

A rose-window seldom resembles a rose
And we're taught that's okay.
An allusion will suffice
Where an illusion fails

And either is better than the third near-homophone.
The Carmen Sandiego of it all.

For if we cannot have the real thing
It's more fitting to sketch the bones from memory
Than to chase the world round
And only find its thorns.