The bear came quietly after dark no one still around the fire heard it knock the garbage over or drag the bags shreds and wrappers strewn across the dark yard like stars like rotting constellations We feasted hours earlier cracking the crab legs dragging out meat with tiny forks Summer is sweet work a bowl for the rinds another for the pits nothing good under the sun except for this
the size of this night an ocean in search of a shore— a mouth in search of a word it is not good to sit here alone too long it never did rain but clouds obscure the moon it should be nearly full asymptotic arriving— two owls call back and forth in the forest out back nearly pitch black— sound establishes the distance
the evening breeze, cooler breaking the news gently rain in the forecast none to soon the grass parched birds laying about stupefied a crow with its mouth ajar beak at right angles red flag warning East of the cascades still light this late the softened dappled kind that gets tangled in the trees that might set one on fire
you always know where you are I cannot relate (to know where you are you must be in one place) even now this toe is in the ocean this hand still touching the train that left this ear full of a child’s wailing this one, a bird, far-off you can go anywhere in the alpine (what you carry is only what you packed) rare air above the talus slops but even on a summit I […]
yellowjacket on the double-pane on a reflection of a leaf inside he is missing an antennae and stays a long time absorbing the morning heat easy to forget even summer has its edges salmonberry thorns and early-season tartness the splintering dock our feet grown soft some spider has tried to tether the world overnight a tenuous cohesion when it catches in the sunlight the yellowjacket pulses four wings open shut open shut I look for […]
I used to live on this street before I met you before you bought this house how many times did I walk by it a neat trick a whip stitch of time and place of whens and mes
Out on a lake out on a boat the perfect place for one who wants to rest and one who wants to go
finally leaving the hospital what details tired eyes will settle upon— the cloud deck voluminous, sterile the textures of gauze of cotton packing this maple has green leaves but the stems— the very hue and diameter of an artery bad news over dinner drinking wine in evening shade a wasp climbs down into the bowl of sweet cherries knowing from the opening lines the rest of the story before it can be said— a body […]
too hot to sleep get a glass of water moonlight fills the bathtub what dreams come are just below the surface unsolvable equations the subconscious creates works at and works at the open eye of the window still air static as a tomb all that moves is birdsong dawn robins with their leitmotifs their circular logic
dusty and washed out this early up before dawn bakes into day no traffic yet old songs on the radio slack-keyed, free-wheeling nostalgic slow songs high-flying gulls snow on far-off mountains both chipped from the sky nothing like an empty road wide open highway the mirage of free will— the elusive horizon never quite arriving never quite needing to
OPTIONAL POETRY 