The oddly abrupt crack; I turned to look,
Seeing a pigeon squirm in the driveway,
Crippled somewhat; terminally injured.

Unsure, I stared. Death -- for the first time -- seemed
Welcome; the better choice. Quickness is key
In difficult decisions. Scared, I gave

Chance control, putting the bird in the street.
A car passed, killing it. This conclusion
Appeared obvious, even at fourteen.

Maybe accepting this final release
Helps us help others pass away in ease.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons...*

Beyond the blackest cotton glove,
the compulsively edited manuscripts,
unmentionable lines untrained ears love;
beyond the satin lining of a human husk,
the failing engine or cooing soul
nightingales smuggled in the dusk;
beyond asking how giraffes like to die,
the moon's waxing through a kaleidoscope,
eyes hollowing before hearts tell a lie;
beyond the manifestation of a mental illness,
the coffee spoon having no coffee left to measure,
an overwhelming sense of an unseen presence;
beyond where the orchard truncates its blossoming
is renewal of equality like an unmapped sea
spilling its welcome to a choked wish.

Her heart is cracked alabaster hidden in undergrowth.

Nobody notices the epigraph.

Even if someone did, it wouldn't matter much:

the lettering and filigree have entirely faded.

Death was a word
   I thought of when my first dog
   died. It was a thing I held when young
   and dumb, smashing grasshoppers
   with a bottle in the yard.
   It rested in coffins I never saw,
   grew an atmosphere around the weathered.

I touched it once.

But now I know
   it lives in a midnight phone call
   under pouring rain in a parking lot
   where a man paces with the thought
of never being able to love a voice he hears.

1.
Half-hearted pleas
Administer disease
To an accustomed sorrow;
The natural ease
May come tomorrow.

2.
A half-heart's built
Out of milk that's spilt;
In love no habit ends
When allotted like dividends;
What one intended
Is not often what one did.

3.
A satiated conscience
Rests almost entirely on nonsense.

Say there’s a boy that has two dreams,
One concerns business, one fishing in streams;
But which is the more real my friend?

A wolf licked an Eskimo’s blood-covered knife,
Licked it till it cut-up and bled out its life;
But are wolves’ impulses wrong my friend?

I saw a terrible play with a terrible end
And horrid lines no writer could mend;
But do you think I missed the point my friend?

Upon a time a boy loved a girl,
Loved her like a casket locked upon a pearl;
But what is truest love my friend?

Someone opened a door and let a dog in,
Unaware of where most strays have been;
But what is real kindness my friend?

One hundred slaves wept at their fortune,
United, killed the tyrant, and began to run;
But don’t they still work for their livings my friend?

I found a pocket watch in a patch of tall grass,
Hoped selfishly, watched centuries pass;
But weren't we told time heals wounds my friend?

She stared into the glass,
Saw tears that were not there;
A cat hid in the grass,
Glimpsed a bird and snatched at air.

She brooded by the well,
Heard a sound that went unheard;
A fortress shuddered and fell,
In its ruins promise stirred.

She opened her necklace charm,
Kissed a photo no one could see;
Sailors escaped the storm,
But were captured by the sea.

She sang a silent song,
Said what everyone else saw:
A bird that was not wrong,
Caught in an alley cat's jaw.