Christmas Eve among the pelagic is not un-festive, the ruby rockfish striped with silver tinsel scales, the oystercatcher’s scarlet beak, in the tropical house the leopard ray slides down the sides of its acrylic tank they aren’t sure why, it must feel nice, belly white as snow, one enormous single flake, falling and rising comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Given the rarity of sun we can forgive its low insistent exuberance flooding our eyes from all directions the woodpeckers chatter each call a rapid succession of questions and answers at the edge of this forest almost everything is soft a maze of damp boughs and spongey loam sunbeams that pool honey on the moss the fur of the coyote laid out by the ditch its legs outreached and stiff as branches
There is a stretch of road that often for a moment seems incongruent utterly unfamiliar my car passing through some existential plane— where am I? have I gone the wrong way? the lanes go on eternally in the dark arcade the trees the same soft suggestions by the roadside only the exit signs hard proof of place glowing in the headlights delimiting space
a short eulogy for the shortest day of the year— it rained construction went on indomitably across from the hospital inchoate orderliness enviable what a job to fix something fixable
Sending cards to cdmx it may be spring when they finally arrive if they make it at all this is not an act of faith— when was it we were last there? the sun rising over the tarmac ripe as papaya that long airport hall full of money changers mostly empty at that hour how did we get to Erica’s? how did we get anywhere? the physics of memory is the same as in dreams […]
the night cracks open at four in the morning a tree fell out back gusts push and press against the house the windows protest a tree is still falling, or maybe just a large branch the absolute black distorts perception— a shot and its retort as the thing comes down sharp, profane, maybe more than one thing maybe the night itself scaffolding collapsing the rush of wind obscures any easy answer
the horses abandon their paddock for higher ground it’s really coming down now constant drubbing insistent as a heartbeat the ground is at its limit it might be fatalism to say if it does, it does if it will, it will, but each raindrop hammers home its point with relative accuracy the valley road will flood soon the sky reflected back in pools of muddy glass
at dawn, pearls of rain strung through the bare maple barely a dawn the sky going from wet slate to something slightly lighter a storm today the trees grow discrete but otherwise it passes intangibly a promising new acquaintance I will never see again
a long drive on a short winter day land masses stayed by bridge after bridge the on ramps airy and undulatory and backlit by a low blinding sun the waterways also meandering but with less precision a few straggling salmon follow gradients from the bay up into creeks still swollen from rain and redefining their banks an eagle roosts by the end of the freeway in flight all these bisecting paths are rendered flat as […]
this house sleeps, dreams in the wild night alchemy the tree tops dissolve the sky a soft black no stars, the moon frost on bone, these windows become mirrors, impressions, blurry domesticity, low incandescence, what passes outside passes unknown— until a coyote trips the floodlight ambling an arm’s reach from the house betrayed by motion he continues in motion brindled black, dog sure— by day the hares and towhees freeze when they sense eyes upon […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 