The wet smoldering scent
of burning dogwood
leaves

reminds me of the hours
spent in the garden
kissing

the soiled palms of
a woman tousled
from work.

I am like winter’s  bluebirds surviving
January instead of migrating
to  Guadalajara with kin

to eat  larvae & hover flowered
women with ***** feet who
breastfeed their

babies with gelatinous
eyes and coo
coo

coo, at the occasional
sight of the bluest
in flight.

Awakens and
rises from his recliner.

Peels off diaper, ******
a bronze-orange  stream.

Drinks Sanka with cream,
eats two Little Debbie cakes.

Views MSNBC from 7 a.m.-noon,
consumes a can of tuna and glass of milk.

Sleeps  from 12:30-4: 00 p.m., television drones,
supper—a bowl of oatmeal and an onion sandwich.

Tapes on a new diaper, watches MSNBC at 4:30 p.m.,
falls asleep, he is 87 years and four months old, lives alone.

Our lives are pregnant with insignificance.  
Things like--pecker gnats and Chihuahuas,

fake bronze menorahs,  white t-shirts,
and plastic daffodils.  Good Mental

health demands we balance life’s  trivial
with significant concerns, such as--cost-free

drugs to feel less bad, dealing with suicidal
people who find homicide intriguing, predicting

a python’s hunger pangs and the why, of
Saturn’s four rings;  the wise know the difference.

The scent of your breath across
the horizon of my sternum

& the pull & clench beneath,
is tectonic; white birds
rise & fly, die
& descend.