it’s still light out
early to bed
a headache all day
dull creeping thing–
absence too
spatial, temporal
the gingko trees
or the sky in between
I take it back though
there is no void
nothing is relentlessly
a thing
the streetlight comes on
a breeze stirs the leaves
thunderstorms tomorrow
no reprieve
and then summer
turned back
into itself
gray with cool rain
and mist in the foothills
violet arcs
in the talus field
foxgloves laden
with water
and the falls
falling audibly
again
were it so simple
fashioning a retreat
unease even here
nothing quite dampens it
surprising, the sun today
surprising, the sunset
dramatic on the rooftop
suffused, cinematic
and people being kind
genuinely good
it makes the worse worse
the same way presence
augments absence
the news is so bad
the night so beautiful
long
long notes from bitter
-plucked strings
more sudden rain
from the rooftop
a news ticker
wraps around
high across the alley
disembodied letters
top headlines, this city
turning into glass–
impermeable, deflective
burying the lede,
ample precedent here–
furniture in the basement
of the Panama Hotel
under decades of dust
left hastily
and never retrieved
a drawer left open
a child’s homework–
internment camps
extant, planned reopenings
and someone arguing
in bad faith–
semantics
willful callowness
a cage is
a cage is a cage
Escape to the mountains
to see what endures–
the sun-baked alpine
packed dirt and scree
fiery wildflowers
strange butterflies
warming afternoons
a rock comes loose–
quiet more profound
after its absence
tread lightly
almost as if trespassing
on scalloped snowfields
glaciers, blue-hued, nearly holy–
if they won’t last
what could?
We are on lockdown
Is what they say overhead
Cacophony of sirens
Shut the door quickly
No text pages no emails
We google 911
Mass casualty incident at this address
The halls are dead quiet
The blinds don’t fully cover the window
Isosceles of sunny day
Code blue ED is called
The news channel website loads
Breaking News: Live
Aerial footage of our building
We move the intern away
From the window
No audio
Police move diagonally
Something of interest at the minimart
Soundlessly the camera lingers
Someone gets a text
Drive by up the street
Report from three cars back
Behind the one that started shooting
Probably should still chart
Continue plan of care
Twitter says suspect at large
Twitter says somebody died outside
The streets are closed
Avoid the area
Tentatively doors start to open
Briefing in ten
End of the day
We’re overtime
It’s probably okay to leave
But not if you drove
The garage is still a crime scene
Use the main entrance only
News vans police lines
Yellow tape live mics
Before the briefing
Before the report
A woman crying
Sitting in the grass
People die here all the time
Just not like this
Still not unprecedented
Or fully surprising
But jarring
Scenes of violence
The surreality of how
It changes everything
Or nothing at all
Under a clear blue sky
This side of the street
Or that
They told me how one architect
cast himself as St Thomas
to look out over
the rooftops
in perpetuity–
a sentinel of the Île,
to dawns, the rains,
those low gold winter sunsets,
the Seine grown vein-dark
by evening, bridge spans
reflected to form
perfect spheres of sky–
transient beauty,
it was a later addition,
the apostles on the spire,
nothing lasts forever
as it stands
and nothing stands forever
but they took down
those statues
a few days ago
for what little that is worth
It has been a while
and it will be
a while more
still awake
waiting to watch
an hour disappear
shouldn’t be
it’s late
and getting later
or earlier
wherever you
draw the line
however you define it
looking through
your photos
to know a thing to have
to hold it
it must be late
to be thinking still
about distance
At night the half
-constructed tower
is full of light
and nothing
else, each morning
recently it has snowed,
heavily, after a period
of rain, it is natural
and unsettling
what fills
the hours, open places
devoured, as if commodities–
mere weeks till spring,
and then what?
How many words for snow
what could be
long-awaited
or sudden
sea change overnight
the gulls are beside themselves
the city roofs are white
ice-plated pavement
you are far
and likely to stay
that way
for a while
the sky is still
flakes dislodge in the breeze
whole trees dissolve
into white pixels
and then it all starts up again
like an orchestral chorus
overwrought and beautiful
it makes its own time
OPTIONAL POETRY 