In the stillest moment of the night,
When nothing more than the soft glow
of your cell phone falls across
the gray of your beard and the wrinkles on your face
I remember those nights
I wanted to crawl inside
your burning skin and harbor there
hidden from the world
deep inside you; cradled around my
ache and longing
holding my desire
for you,
as long as I can.

Trembling,
you said to me
“Put the potato down”.
I examined the raw tuber,
clenched tightly in my hand,
like the first man
on a distant continent
to discover
this strange and ugly meteor,
with earthen smell
and cold rough skin;
it’s dead eyes staring back at me.
“Please, put down the potato”
I glanced at you,
wordlessly,
unfurling my fingers
the potato fell to the ground
in an unceremonious
thud.

“A lovely moon tonight” she said.
“It’s the same moon it was last night” he said.
“It looks slightly different somehow” she said.
“It’s exactly the same ****** moon” he said.
“I think it’s fuller tonight” she said.
“Of course it’s fuller tonight” he said.
“It’s brighter and gayer tonight” she said.
“The moon is no gayer tonight” he said.
“It seemed so sad last night” she said.
“How could the moon seem sad?” he said.
      “The moon dies every night” she said.
      “And ferries the souls of the recently dead,
        Into the darkness just out of reach
        It circles the globe unseen and *****  
        It pries open the sky at evening’s breach
The moon has been reborn” she said.
He gave her a look of scorn and dread
“What’s gotten into your head?”
“A lovely moon tonight” she said.

Chalk built, bone-dry, breathless
your dusty lakes, your empty seas,
your hulking mass,
tethered by an invisible rope
in endless retreat.  Endlessly, returning,
reflecting the muted warmth of the sun
in total darkness,
illuming ancient sailors and lost loves,
whispering  to the world;
“you carry your death with you
along with your salvation.”

Tonight,
heavy and full, he drags
himself across a prickly sky, slowly
ascending, he surfaces
from tidal depths, slowly
descending,  he slips behind  
majestic  cascades
bathed in his silver light,
extinguished
by his own absence and the breaking
of tomorrow.

The freshly severed heads
of dandelions
explode, silently, at the gentle
puff of a child’s breath.
Their hollow stems shed milky tears;
the seedlings fill the air.