I wish all my writing  depicted gaggles
wedging south over mossy lakes.

They more often wander to  legs,
tangerine tongues, the taste

of sweat and smell of cheap hairspray;  
for thoughts like these, I feel no
                                          shame.

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.

With  fly rod in hand
grampa slowly walks up the hill.

I search my hair for ticks because  
cousin Charlie said your **** stands

a chance of falling off if one
bites you in the fall of the year.

Gramma’s hands
shades her eyes as she squints

from the screened-in porch
toward grampa, he is on his knees,

gramma’s arms
fall and she runs;

this will probably be my last trip
to the loch with my grandparents.

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.