how empty are all your handfuls?
do we all sleep where the wolves blink-
and the moon seep into howling
lather?
do we choke on the foam
of our persistent cadavers by scooping -
lungs from a pit of breathlessness?
do we do such things to under-last
the span of our questioning?
if so, is all the life at our fingertips
gleaming euphoric in a fit of grief?
or at an angle in a wrinkle
of mischief
that corners the bruise
where the pretty
Is a living
thing?

At the corner of Toil and Banks
A waitress with wheels in motion
had to stop.
It felt like a joke about you
with a misspelled nametag.
but she missed the bus
so it felt worse.

her tips were burning pinpricks
in her 9 pm jersey
where the seal was broken
by unseasonably warm
candor.
but getting a taxi was like
an orchid arithmetic
with gold chains
made of Concrete
Aloe Virtual.
and a spot
of constant
heart in a
marsh.

she was never after.

I see Spring now. tipping green sprouts into grey days, as April showers
and May dips a towheaded Sun above the brisk humidity of a strange tangle
of Seasons… spooning in the dark at midday.
I see Spring now, lilting in the underbrush; fetching imminent spoils
as fairy rings and bluegrass tango in the corrugated lawns
of our fathers.
a wealth of exchange is bilking the dam for all its girth. an ocean of tomorrows
with midges and scissortail cleaving the blue with sharp beaks
and black eyes like a shy Luger
on a hip.

like a margarine heart of a Georgia peach
the sun bogs at the bottom of the sky and i boggle
at the merriment of surrender,,, as the hours retire
to their night clocks and mice pitch sit-coms
in cornfields -
while you sleep
through spectacular
epiphanies
that a heartache
can hardly
pretend.

whatever land you’re in, i’ll know it by the elemental books
and the babbling brooks of your palatial retreat.
i’ll know you're there when i cross the boundaries of your remove
by the scent of your moon-barrels of rain
and the warped coin of your realm
slipped into my palm by sleight of hands
too small to get wet
in a pond.

your ripples will find me attuned to your island by kite-string
and periwinkle post-Its. my radio will have you mapped
to a dun hill where other hills are chaste and smothered in fog.
but bitten by sunshine on the nape of a shadow -
I’ll know you for your regal fatigue
and embrace you with the love
at my core, so that our magnets may kiss
and restore your silhouette
to my blindspot
like a vital conundrum
with an operatic lisp.

Like too many kisses on a loose tooth, a butterfly dances.
the air like syrup and gossamer, with clouds out of time’s grip
scudding the blue raiment of the world, with happy gnats flapping
in the teeming as shoots of fennel curl in the copious soliloquy
of the infinite canvas.
the day is all things. i witness unrecoiled, on a bench of Springtime.
soaking my tendons in tumultuous calm.
a goodly amount of nectar, beads the forehead of a Bee.
and i am constantly amazed
where it hurts.

Milking a comet is thirsty work
but it suits me to the bone.
dog star kennels in my back forty
where the pecans are black fallen
in green grass… there i lose my frisbee
and sing otherwise.
out by the shed you can mark a century
of unspoiled silence…
humming in the canopy
like a harmless
quiet.

like a mitten
for a snowflake
with a song.