the third day of spring, pear blossoms fall like snowflakes
then disappear in the new grass

this blanket coming green after a russet winter
during which the old man took shovel to earth
to bury her last Retriever

the runt of the litter, yet it grew strong
and outlived her by only a fortnight, after sniffing her dormant beds, lying at the foot of her lawn chair

as if the canine divined where he last saw her:

lounging in the yard, reading Dickinson under early March light,
sipping a mint tea, scratching the pet's ears;

she passed there, under the same trees, winter's survivors
not yet in bloom

though full of budding promise, unrealized, unseen, but there even as they lay her in the ground

When the yellow day coppers to dusk
I paint my weary eyes dreams.

They nudely wade the crabhole muds
for marks of the great marksman
climb up the chunks going into tides
tiptoe through the needle roots
sniff a wind that smells of stripes
thrilled
death if comes
would be a momentary stir
a dangling cloth
resting on the trail of blood, marking,
someone ventured.

When I was thirteen
and still seeing daylight
between my ****** feet
I went to spend the night
with my best friend;
we watched Gunsmoke
on the TV and raided
the refrigerator;
I remember his sister
coming home later
and leaving a crack
in her door and taking
off her clothes before
turning the radio
of my childhood on
leaving it playing
all the hot night long
and I sill hum every one
of those sweet songs.

I hear it
half in the bag of blankets
with an empty glass of wine
dumped
Between--
the furnace rumbling on
and the cat purring on my lap

"What the hell!"

That foreign sound!--

...of water in the winter
Far too cold for rain
more like a forest stream's refrain
I start to think of birds-- Then it occurs

I have a problem in the basement

Wading into the waters of Lake Laundry
Glancing warily for those snakes of wires
suspended from their rafter's limbs
about to spit and snag me
with their lightning strike

Slamming that ****
to make it go--
away--

Defeat
dripping off
jeans and unders
A clothes line pinned
with curses

Ah yes.
The smell of the Tide ...
going out
on another day

In the evening comes the dim light, the swooping away of day,
the blue, gray clouds, the turbulent air of wild birds
small specs, black and disappearing.
After awhile only quiet,
and then a certain silence settles in
it moves like fog, alongside the moon
it comes cold, blanketing the soul
a depth of space unknown
a well of darkness, undiscovered
the losing of this day, this light
and in the long, lingering hours
dwelling in the dark caved places
touching the soul and flooding the heart
the crashing waves will come
to break one wildly apart.

Even as dying, I have no time
For bitterness.

Life was too short,
Even before.

Each step holds gratitude for the sound
Of snow beneath it.

For
Now

I carry my passenger
Unburdened.

Say no to nothing. Not
Even the cancer.

Even tomorrow's mother's tears,
Father's clenched fists upon casket;

Flowers; loss. Inevitability.
Death grows inside me.

The opposite of a
Pregnancy.