Pigeons are water-birds carved from stoicism.
When feet approach, they disperse, reconnect,
and continue, leaving me completely perplexed.

I can never tell the difference
between their calling of mate
and battle for territory.

Both actions are so absurdly similar.
I watch for days, chasing them
and their thirty-yard flights with my coffee in-hand.

I've traveled to the Rockies of Colorado
from the *****, Lower East Side of Manhattan
by rusted, dring-belled and horned bicycle.

Cool winds helped sail me across forest trails
and I slept, albeit briefly, on park bench ports;
they attract my current muses and, in turn, me.

These winter-jacketed birds tend to puff up and coo and dance
in front of one another defending their plumage,
their right to be, where they are, for what fills them whole.

One will stare at another, the other never looks back.
One will bump another, the other never touches back.
One will chase the Other and then gently caress its wings,

as if to stab, "Stay a while, partake in the sidewalk feast."
One wants in, the other out; they both want in
so I'll be headed home now.

A bag of bricks
hammered my knees
and I fell back
into my seat.
It could've been
the lack of sleep
that surely caused
my eyes to cross.
And before I knew
up what happened
my ****** reaction
sent mind spinning.

Red and spots
across my vision,
fireworks on
my students' faces
and words I mixed,
I wasn't there,
phrases for parks
with wine eyed glances
and starry looks
and cold, blue irises
with lime diamond leaves
and cream spring breezes
blown on by
the longing hidden
on a picnic blanket,
spread out, limbs numb
on a picnic blanket.

But this time
it was wide.
This time I tried,
I did, I spoke
myself out.
I talked it all
through to me,
for me to hear.
I needed a,
"Why not?"
and of course
I had had it
stock-piled up
in storage.
Boxes upon boxes
of, "Because."

Nearly convincing,
nearly enough
to keep me,
keep me silent,
but my voice
soars above
and I lie
staring at
ouroboros
dancing around
in straight-lined,
patterned flames.
D-Dragging
their feet,
eating themselves
again, devouring
and smiling,
inviting me to feast.

Daylight to look out a window
and midnight to see into one.
Say some name three times
at a candlelit face, a flashback
to fear at such a young age.
These were stories that were told
to us by older brothers and sisters
during our weekend sleepovers.
We're mirror images of them
no matter how old we grow.
Children playing in the snow
in the coldest of northern winters,
making a snowman, giving a name,
topping him with a black-ribboned hat
and an added lit cigarette to allow
easy passing of a lampless evening
faced an overbearing, light-speckled sky.

The image passes away in the day,
everything melted to bring spring
anew to the streets and city pools.
Clean them out, remove their stories
from the past year for the new ones
to come. Crop your face to bring light
back in and to tabula rasa our crevices.
Spiderwebs and crows feet.
Let your frame pass into the attic
to lean on your dusty, keylocked journals
and that 19th century armoire
that has no place in your place anymore.
Tell me those stories, tell me your stories.
Tell me your stories, and I'll tell you mine.

Pick a length
and focus on it.
It could be somewhere
or on something,
key word here is "on,"
"is," is also poignant,
but focus long enough
and it'll surely blur.
What I mean to seem
is that attention
dissolves and lens
blends retention.

Distance exists more
within hypothetical thought
than in the connection itself.
Contemplate stepping into
a dirt-stirred puddle with
hidden depth and shape
on your daily sidewalk walk.
Never step in it, never;
it'll up past ankle.
Wet shoes and squish,
you're looked at. Rush past
another walker, cold feet, another walker.
It, they, them, out: be limbless.

On the wall, pick a spot.
See a wall be not.
See it tall.
Can you see it?
Is it there?
Make sure it's there,
because it is it is
it is a wall.
Focus. Spot.
Now see you.
"See," is the question.
Can you see you?
See you at me stare.
Let it bend blue
and walk ******* the
ice-covered sidewalks.
Step hard and step fast.

It was January of 1994
when he told me, "Son, true love,
well, it's hard to come around."
Or maybe he said, "come by."
I can't remember exactly.
Memory is foggy, age, you know.
I never thought I'd ever say that.

I've had a pet since I was born.
Not the same one, they always end
up dying. I haven't gone a year
without one close by me.
Before bed, I pucker my lips
and pretend to kiss twice
behind both ears while whispering
to them, "Goodnight." Then,
I lightly scratch their sanctum,
be it cage or kennel, so they know
I am no ghost; I am truly there.
Dog, cat, rat, it doesn't matter really;
they all just blankly stare back
and continue with their nightly business.

"If you love something, it can
never leave. Only hate can
drive others away, and that,
that's called, 'self-hate.'"
Then he laughed,
he laughed out with stretched
cheeks and gold-capped teeth
and that "eyeglasses-off" look
as if the world was deaf,
blind, and dumb. His
white collar crisp, stiff
with starch. That morning was ours.
Within earshot, the cat was mewing,
awaiting our kitchen entry where,
in the white-walled corner, sat his bowl,
staring at the ceiling, brown, dry, stale.

That morning always comes back to me
like a child returning from school.
Homework on the table and a snack
to eat just before rushing out to
meet up with the neighborhood kids for
a game of football down the road.
They've surely had talks like ours, Dad.
They've rubbed noses and brushed
pink cheeks of late lovers, flashed back
to mother and wrestling with brother.
Those important conversations
that only return with age,
we all remember them.

I've been gone
a long, long time.
I can't even
recognize
reflected eyes,
in and of that
god-awful lake.
Distant glaze.

They're blue.
Been so long
that time's flown
over our heads
down into
what was before,
below our bench
that sat above
the edge of Was,
our lake away.

Words, rough cut
of meat along
the bank. Etched
into the dirt
by my deep, deep
breaths. Heavy wolf
at my side, never
fed, never enough.
Claws me, my
abdomen deep,
gnaws the words
in the ground,
but his mouth
will never be
wide enough
for them or me.

Sorry poor baby,
I'll pray for you too.

Two rats locked up
that write the time
and play all day
and you love them.

A meter cubed
is their whole life.
You peer inside
and you love them.

Their dirtied floor
marks thirty more
grey days of waste
and you love them.

But once in a while
you'll take them out,
they'll climb about
and you love them.

Across your pants
and up your sleeve
to sniff your ear
and you love them.

A sudden move,
they scare with ease.
They **** and ****.
You grab their necks.

You put them back
and curse their feet
that beg retreat
and crawl and scratch.

And from afar
you hear them squeak
and claw the cage
and you love them.

Just keep them there
all safe and sound.
To you, they'll pray,
and you'll love them.