Half our bodies oxygen,
      by mass.
Transfermium Wars-  who knew?
      elemental naming controversy,
      my new favorite war.
Americium-241 in your smoke detector,
     alpha emitter, ionizing ****.
Dual atomic clocks- Ytterbium lattice-
     understanding would taint this fun.
     (Apparently there is a Time and Frequency
     Division somewhere).
Solid to vapor- if only we sublimed
     our way home, though maybe better
     suited for air signs. An earth sign, myself,
     sticking to terra dirtus.
2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126- the Magic
     Numbers in physics- full nuclei,
     like full bellies- maybe our magic years too...
     'cept for 126- unless you're a Galapagos tortoise.
Manganese blackening bulls in Lascaux.
Plumbum latin for lead, ala plumbers and their pipes
     of yesteryear.
Fire and brimestone actually fire and sulfur,
     still wrathful, though I always
     imagined brimstone as being a
     damning brick falling.

You won't be synthesized, maybe never discovered,
                yet we sense you near, proposed metal,
                silvery white and ghosting....
                              
                                      119.

bought ten old sheets at
the thrift store today,
                     feverish whim

          these dreams of fire
          bolt me from sleep

escape a window two stories
high, a sheet rope, if I
had the nerve

who has  -nerve-  these days?

though still we bend over our                          
                                kno­ts..

we can make our own sure things,
if we’re not greedy holding on to
slow motion crashes, orchestrating
the wrong moves to prove a point-

               see, every action has infinite
                         reactions, depending on
                         your grip. my wreck, your
          
                          mosaic.

         as for this unruly air,  I
                                                    breathe it deep.

we may never occur to one another,
not in passing circles or dreams.
not even at the checkout flipping
through magazines, synapses firing
on everything else but us- no ground
shared to walk over.

see the woods drop to bare,
lush jungled being a blink-
      seasons liminal breath.

savage, sticky emptiness,
   flying geese through
   the bramble, naked
   bark framing blue,

sharp, so like grace- the path clear,
                                       space to move through.

poem
    period
pistachio
         primitive

grasping a shirtfull of stones
        lake bluer than the sky- such a thing
lapping salty, barely covering my feet
                                              cold but then

a part in the glass, far out
    gliding this way- slick like soaked

fur. squinting, harder/tigher now
    
                   letting loose and dropping
            my shirt, my dazzling catch
                       palms binoculars

what’s this? so I sit and wait
       forming prints in the wet
     with feet, hands- too ordinary.

impossibly, my mirage creature
          approaches, eyes locked
       on me and paws out of the

bluer than sky, circles the ground
       next to me and settles
               glossy beast.

non-confrontational by nature,
    i introduce myself
       and nothing.

       then, what’s this?

and with that my visitor rises and
  pounces on the wet earth,

two prints that he quickly
    licks clean, erasure

then mine. the sound of
                rocks cracking.

what’s this?  no sooner arrived
than split, towards the sagey hills

-