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
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 […]
High summer the currents long romances etching the bay a breeze from an open window the mosquito netting sways how tangible, how solid a day can be anchored in memory slipping into archetype a seagull descends from the tallest pine a long long descent crisp and white as the ferry’s wake across deep water the bay stretching on as far as the horizon blue soporific the day expands demands expansion the tide goes on and […]
Just past the pier a sea lion, briefly and two dorsal fins like piqued interest very present and transient only a few kids saw them and exited the water but at a certain point there’s no longer a point to reticence– consider the odds or don’t it still goes out like a sigh, the tide the pier stretching out into the open Pacific like the longest exclamation
a blue stroke across beige paper a river cleaves two banks look at this place the contorted topographies red dirt roads like open veins and muddied waters the stars at night are big and bright where does it come from this possessiveness? to take establishes the precedent of loss so choose your hypotheticals carefully– why don’t they, if only then the golden door would open simple, easy another girl got swept away in the Rio […]
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
even sunnier finally a day without construction birdsong even in the slight morning breeze and the burbling of distant indistinct conversation non-threatening some man singing and well the sky pressed blue paper a formal invitation we graciously request your presence the gingko mumurs in assent
this month sheds days like scales and another thing breaks under cornflower skies another method of conveyence the express bus the phonecall kept dropping and here I read another poem about furniture coincidence but the eye lingers how to assemble a self repair or spring for something newer
the way a summer day lingers, and the night, too a golden thing won’t go– some minutes are a life of possibility, the breeze shakes the shades and sunbeams shift on the floor like seagrass underwater, ephemeral, summer, how many ways it could go, or stay, first cool of evening, but still light out, birdcall and voices from afar, and summer fruit, the lazy sweetness of it all, each hour rising up like super-heated air, […]
An expanse of hours an evening stretching open like a mouth cool breath no, cold . Watching the gulls amid the old hotels and new, so obviously not homes . Anywhere just anywhere else but here
OPTIONAL POETRY 