It’s not a decision to see my breath turn to cloud. It’s not my decision to breathe, although I know some, now, who have made that call— Coldest are the nights with stars, halos round the moon, clinical beauty, precise and piercing— You say it’s a matter of choice. I say, take whatever warmth you can get, for as long as you can get it– always darkest before the dawn hinges heavily on assumption
[Posthumous] Lilac streaks this sunrise against the dusky mountain the floor moves on with plans for discharge or work for the M.E. it does get lighter earlier now I panic in traffic thinking I’m late staring at the mountain and what does late even mean if not that we take so much for granted
Speaking of birds some thumbed the air between the dawn and the plastic cover of my headlights it must have been this morning and the right side of the road which is technically the orientation for both going and coming here but all I remember is the shape of the birds decidedly not bird-like beading up in feathery condensation coursing across my field of vision gray and fluid and seemingly wingless bushtits maybe the tiniest […]
Looking for something else I found an old photo— What a trick it would be to slip back into life, especially my own. . Oh that a want would just come when called, like an obedient dog, not some senile, pissy cat. . Or was it I was meant to sit and stay? The whole time I thought I was out there taming things. . This air is just too stale for remembering— the sky […]
A dream before sleep or a lapse in place, Venice, the path to the piazza, under our feet a watery moon, we were lost but didn’t care, we had no place to be, and all the gondolas were moored, only now does that seem prescient.
Think of a cardinal and I think of snow the natural background for that berry of a bird on a card you gave me once that you pasted in a book so what if it was summer when we watched one one last time the leather on the chair was cracked it was auburn it was orange it was afternoon and memories are nothing more than fabrications built to furnish emptying rooms and there must […]
A river coursing in the street, the sky a strange yellow above the newly mangroved lawn, and inside it’s still a bottle of yawns; it sure gets boring inside this Ark.
First rain, then wind later, this front moves through mechanically, going through motions with little soul, the dog can’t even bring herself to bark in alarm. Instead we sleep away the dead days, and waking, are called back, the sound of a broken bough falling is pillowy, landing, it comes to rest, comes to rest.
I am starting to understand this need for jargon, how to hold on to our humanity we simplify others’ noting agonal breathing not drowning on dry land. Kindness? You could argue it either way, and what’s the point? I just noticed you can see the whole stadium from the parking lot, a clear view of green serene lanes of turf– that’ll be nice come summer.
[DNR/DNI] It rained tonight, really rained, for the first time this year– I wonder if you were still around to see it. On the floor it’s always endings or the beginning of ends and there’s two ways you can go out that door and I’d call either of them leaving.
OPTIONAL POETRY 