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 […]
The bobcats came in close at dusk as the rain ebbed three, one following one after the other like easy conversation wild around the eyes unhurried, unworldly and for one single moment joy
the street ended in a cloud as did the day a damp forest lot made softer by mist some of it rain and some of it a gift a slip of the ephemeral given up by the earth
rabbit at the yard edge still as stone fading into dusk awaiting something or outwaiting it— I wasn’t prepared for the silence here awaking suddenly to the crack of wood under duress holding my breath listening as the whole forest surged around me— there is no such thing as empty space I know this by how night swallows this house the knock-kneed pines and the flooded fields beyond them the very earth falling away the […]
a day under glass how to explain the air was thick but nothing happened the sun never even rose late geese flew low in an avian shorthand in a lusterless sky
Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini accompanied by the roar of two plastic dinosaurs from the back seat of the car the rain compounds the dark and traffic inches along I sent the package to the wrong house, the old house this is an uncertain endeavor what is mine, what was mine you are unaware in your carseat watching the world melt into discrete globes of red and white and green clinging to the windows […]
After the rain watching the chickens deliberate in the grass a small gecko working its way up the palm cane a flash of guava at its throat this sultry, verdant place— we all sleep easily but lightly the soporific ocean the balmy taro fields water pooling like mercury around the alien stalks a dreamscape a floating afterlife earth made sky the heaviness of air suddenly palpable— strange to step out of a life so abruptly […]
Slow dawn over the bridge a dark gray sky that dreams of other colors, softly, dully, mirrored in the window panes of flat-faced houses perched on hills that descend precipitously into the lake, so still this morning, no trace of movement, no speedboat wake, no curl of smoke, nothing to indicate life save the houselights, so warm and abstract at this distance— the bridge span then extends into a tunnel clear passage that obscures the […]
it’s those in between days now the shock of cold at dawn but then the old familiar heat red flag watch east of the Cascades the fires taking off late the spiders out early even instinct stupefied it’s time to accept the tomatoes on the vine have gone mealy and sour there is a cost to holding out too long a loss in holding on I take the chicken wire off the garden beds and […]
This is a language I can’t fully speak but clearly these waves break the way they break with intention. I couldn’t remember the topography of this beach, thought rocks not sand, misplaced the tree that straddles the void where the yellow clay blank was bitten by the surf, although I’ve been here many times as myself, and as someone else. There must be a shallow bar where the waves are breaking, beyond that, the steely […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 