I used to tell
My students

“the best way to call in sick”
is to mention the word
Diarrhea
“no one
will ask you,” I told them
“what color, what size,
what pain”
it’s not like a headache

I need to call
In today
But how can I tell them
it’s for a poem.

delivered from that woman
   unto another & unto another
   delivered and delivered again

   this forever birth seems new again
   seems to take forever, seems
   I’ve been crawling in this canal before

   many births ago
   I swore I was finished
   but here I am again
   being born again

   delivered from that woman
   unto another & unto another
   delivered and delivered again

In the seventh month fire dances.
Flame bakes the sky.
Second month is for winter clothes.
Each month brings something.
The months revolve like wheels,
Turning  through cold days and hot.
Who knows what direction?
Consult the stalks.
Elemental words, auspicious springs.
We are spinning,
Spinning with this world.

What lies under
Has no human word.
What can be said
Has been said
And often enough.
Sitting at Pond’s edge,
Barking with dog,
Learning to be quiet.

fickle day
leaf-chaser squalls
end-of-summer molt
‘white bellies’
the dry gale has begun

pick and claw
limited feeding & foraging
beam winds, warps
and tides
the dry gale has begun

swimming legs
swimming legs
where is bottom?

Old poisons bake from the soil;
Pluto, underworld god, pitches
Plutonium, god of dirt and death.

What was it ****** cried  --
Judische Physik? His lucky hate
Kept Dybuk in the dust,
The devil inside uranium.

But, ****** left us behind:
       his U-Project,
The creatures who salted Carthage.