The rusted chests of robins
are bobbing in the breeze.
Their little feet above
their heads, isn't it odd to see?
And just as I’m about to dare
this bird a bat to be,
I blink and see instead
the clinging of the leaves,
all dead.

here we are, dangling
our feet over the edge
of the meantime,
here we are, sitting
on the edge, dangling
our feet over, letting
the cracked skin of our
fingertips skim the surface
of the meanwhile, waiting
for our reflections to break

Gnats are just a nuisance,
Mosquitoes are a threat,
Fireflies are a fleeting try
At remember instead of forget.

The side of my face
that was facing the sun
knows about being burned
slowly by a loved one.

Space all fills up with futures
that flow between the cracks
of everything like water:

everything is murky thick
with what we could have had,
bay windows and granddaughters.

I swim through the parallel universe
in which you and I hold up
your father’s old desk between us,

tilting it to follow the bend
of the stairs and leaning it to rest
against the wall of our new place,

aching with the weight of it
and with the possibilities for how
we’ll organize ourselves together
in this new space.

An apartment that is empty
but not hollow.

Eating takeout on the floor
and imagining the bookshelves
we’ll build tomorrow.

Like a glacier must flow,
I need you to know some things you can’t see.

It’s going to be different for me.
I had to fight so hard to be happy,
to be proud. And I did,
and now I can’t put it down.
So what I need you to know is this:
I’ll still be holding it.
I will hold your hand up to my eyes
and marvel at how it looks in mine,
and I will be happy, and I will be proud,
and I will do my best not to think
about what feelings one is allowed.
And I will hold on, but to do so
I will put no part of me down.

I kindly ask you to remember that
my arms will be a little full always already.

The duck with the voice of a smile,
The finger that follows the thread,
The dance with the air of beguile,
The tree with the flowers in red.

The dirt on the back of the shovel,
The sigh at the foot of the bed,
The bird with the flight of remembered,
The life that still lives in the dead.

The mouse in my brain who controls all the switches
Sits back on its haunches to wait for its pill.
It swallows it down and then blinks as it misses
Whatever it was that had first made it ill.

Instead of seeing what you see,
try to see what’s there: here
lies snow blanketing
the home above Jupiter’s
storm. The south-facing
windows have Saturnlight
much of the year, and if
you sit kindly on the porch,
the eighty moons will sing
to you. Observe the shed
in the front garden where your
rover can charge after its
Europa digs. You’ll find the
privacy astounds you,
but you won’t be lonely--
Elara will sing to you.
The snow will hug you,
the space will shun you,
but this you know is true
of any neighborhood.
Now step inside, have a look
at your new view. You are
alone but awestruck.
There is no cul-de-sac, nor
nearby school, but remember
that Elara will sing to you.
Aren’t you interested, then,
in your alone home with
the green eyes? Very well,
but on your way out don’t
forget to turn back--
I did tell you that here lies.

Why are you trying to stay here?
At the bottom of my eyes is just
retina, muscle, gore.
Have you never seen the sky before?

The bolt on the door must be thrown,
so out of bed shrug my shaking bones.
We are a pile of tired connections
and joints creaking over the floorboards.
Shadows and wind hit the window and
every stir jostles all these pieces.
We ask the streetlights for help to shine
and the trees for help to stand and even
the stars for help to fall but those things
are outside, and we are in here.

What was it about you? It was the moon.
It was how the night was suddenly not
black but purple with light swirling through
like snow, the whole thing glowing all
the yellows and blues Van Gogh ever dreamed of.

It was the sharp intake of air after running
up the tower but just before looking down,
when you feel the space between you
and the ground but have yet to discover it.
It was the confidence of music when you know
which note comes next but are still thrilled to hear it.

It was sitting on the floor with a breakfast pie,
running through a field with a fluttering kite,
being always at the apex of the arc of the swing,
living the aerial view but looking forward
to the wind on the way down.

It was potential energy. Let us take hands
as we run in circles like children in the grass,
me the earth and you the moon, and we pull
each other in as the spinning pushes out
and we balance that way, suspended in space,
gravity’s most natural motion machine,
orbiting instead of falling.

How he holds his hands
in front of him, palms out,
speaking softly as if to a
spooked wild creature,
reassuring it he won't
approach too quickly.
That he is safe.
How I've waited to be
approached in good faith.
How I've sat at the window,
mind far above the room,
breath catching with the shadow
of every passing bird.
How I've willed it to be
one of us, swooping in,
tapping the glass with the
holding end of her broom.
She'd raise her hands
like I was a wild songbird
she didn't want to fly away,
and softly say,
I haven't said a word.
And I'd say, I know.
I recognize you, too.

The thing about doves
is that they’re pigeons.
The thing about grass
is that it itches.
The thing about love
is that it is made of glass
and not religion. Anyway,
I’ll see you after class

What am I tethered to?
Anger? Distrust?
The tree will die
if you dig out the roots
but I’ll close my eyes
while you do
what you must.

In a moment of stress
I count the many ways to dream:
one, flying on a dragon’s back;
two, parent having heart attack;
three, dog chasing squirrel;
four, sun swallowing world;
five, duck in a witch hat;
six, her hair falls in curls.

The book was soaking on a bench
in the park.
It was dripping from my hands the
whole way home.
It was drying on the sill when first
it sparked.
It was warm and dry again when
out it roamed.

An avalanche kills a deer
that feeds a mountain lion.
If it all came crashing down
who would I become?
So badly do I need to know
that I push the first stone.

When I open my eyes
I see the dream has been watching
me sleep. I blink
and she is crossing her legs
on her perch in the window,
fingers tracing my heart rate
in the frost on a glass
of orange juice.
She clatters the blinds
as she unfurls her wings.
Before she goes,
she hands me the glass
and I linger in the moment
we both hold the same thing.

Here’s something about watching birds:
you become them.
You become the heron slim and silent,
walking on her toes.
You become the crow who just for fun
slides down a pitched roof after snow.
You become the seagull who can’t lift
her wings for the weight of the oil.
You become the robin looking over her shoulder,
hopping lightly, not taking off
until she knows you’re coming closer.
You become the hawk’s focused soar,
the vulture’s misshapen roar, the finch’s stutter,
the kestrel’s hover, the hummingbird’s all of a flutter.
When I cannot speak, you ask me what is wrong.
I am full of birds, I mutter.

I never imagined the job
atom for atom, breakthroughs
and item lists.
I imagined sitting on a
lab floor, tossing a ball
against the wall, catching flashes
of something in the periphery
but trying not to scare it,
humming back at machinery,
averting my eyes and then looking,
hearing you and being heard
until I've lost my footing.
I imagined that the knowing
would be burning.
We'd go right up to the edge
of the cliff and instead
of going over, learning.

And then one day you spoke
and I had nothing to say.
Free, just like that.
Oh how the lightness
starts to weigh.

Wake up. Stretch neck
left, then right. Swing legs
over edge of bed.
Water the plants. See
how they drink up another day
without question.

Each day I wake up younger
than I was the day before,
Look around with open eyes,
knowing less and learning more.
I tilt my head to understand
the tide that eats the shore,
And at night I sleep well knowing
that I don't know the score.

My bones remind me
to love what can be broken
every time I stand

My heart reminds me
not everything that falls breaks
so I'll shake your hand

The future used to be tomorrow.
Remember that?
Lying on our backs with our eyes
lit by the fire's glow, our hands
to the stars, our plans hurtling
towards us, raining from the sky.

The future used to be tomorrow.
Remember that?
Floating on our backs and if we
didn't have a sunrise, we'd borrow.

As adventurers prefer
hot air balloons to trains,

death is convenient
but I've found something better.

This time, please,
can we take it?

The bigger the tree in the front
yards I pass, the more my eyes
narrow, focused on the hunt.
If I’m quiet and choose my
moment just right, I can catch
the future I want. Don’t look
at me that way, like I’m all
the songs I haven’t sung.
I have only ever been young.

sometimes a lemming
can't make it across the street
you're my incomplete

Finally I have done what you do. I did it
by sitting down and starting to try.
It turns out anyone can draw a bird.
What other talents belie?
It turns out not just any feathered thing
can fly--

Between the sun of my eyes
and the canvas of my eyelids
is the silhouette of you
which I must always look upon.
There is only dead.
There is no gone.

You cannot take the coal mine
out of the canary.
But with time watch closely
and I will teach you
how to spell sanctuary.

There is taking off
and there is jumping.
One for up and one
for down.
There is sitting in
a garage and there
is waiting, in its air,
to drown.
There is falling for love
and falling for gravity.
There is the clatter of
your fallen crown.

I didn’t need you to look
at someone like me and see
a rattlesnake where your
pillow should be. I didn’t
need to see disgust thrown
down at the feet of one of us,
or to imagine me as something
I’m afraid of, or to slink around
with my belly in the dust.

All right, you’re pretty. But more specifically,
you are falling snow, crystalline in the street,
muffling motorcycle engines and businessmen,
falling, falling up and all around,
you skip along the shoulder of a forest road
snow falling up but still covering the ground.
Whimsy but efficient.
The sun sets to back down.
You smile and he wraps his tail around
his paws and tilts his head at your feet,
how was he to know?
He flattens his ears and looks down
so that you may rise with all
the glow and murmur of the moon,
a bulb of sun draped with a lampshade of snow,
snow falling up, moon may rise
during sunset, the sun can’t succeed
even half as well as you can try.

I need a little something
to remind me I should start.
A little piece to click in place,
then no more broken heart.

I am the boat as it fills
with water and drops
like stone, and I am
the crane that pulls
it up to the surface, and I am
the knot that comes undone
and the boat that falls
again in earnest.

A drop in the bucket,
a nail in the wall,
the wind lilts east
and an acorn falls.
A grain in the sand,
a change in the weather,
the wind shifts and
we are not together.