‘Round the ankles of the birches autumn water gathered, murky – winter held it down til frozen cradled gently in the hollows – skirts of ice surround the low limbs stopped mid-fling by frigid wind embroidered not in poodle, plaid, suspended there, upended, glad – wee peeping frogs, asleep, adorn a petticoat of moss and … More When They Finally Wake in April
i. I came to Earth in the Summer of Love, September 1969, just after Apollo 11 carried Neil and Buzz to the proper side of the moon, (the one she’s shown to us from the start). They left bootprints all across her face. This morning, almost as an afterthought, NPR tells me that the … More The Jade Rabbit 2 Tells Me My Fortune
Auld Jack Devine, as afternoon bows to the long shadows of a June evening, stands there, then, in the green and wet field, as they all are green and wet, appraising these Americans searching County Mayo for Jack Devine, clutching a damp ship’s manifest: Well. Aye. Ye found him. Auld Jack, eighty if a day, … More Irish Evening
For B. I. Grief is an animal, slouching behind the bolted door in your soul’s bleak and darkened house – ranging around with muddy paws and ragged claws, dragging the covers off the bed, off of your chest and thrashing through the cold ashes left by the fire gone cold in the hearth of your … More Grief is an Animal, Slouching
So Mercutio cried – and before and since and ever, the years start over in darkness, the face of the earth turned away from the sun; The calendar is a ragged thread of a winter sweater snagged on a fencepost nail; it’s a ball of yarn spooling out into the future, bouncing across the kempt … More Ask For Me Tomorrow And You Shall Find Me a Grave Man!
Winter broke and entered years ago, pressing icy fingers against our skin, wandering under our shirts, searching for our hearts, listening as we slowly wound down – we were watches kept in a drawer of an empty house. But I think you must have jacked open some painted-over lead-poisoned window, somewhere, deep inside, (maybe in … More Breaking and Entering
Something about seeing your skull in black and white and pulled nonchalantly from the manila folder makes me feel loose inside as though all of my bones have let go of each other for the moment, and are floating around unmoored in my limbs, my chest. The skull is death, it’s for pirates, and archaeologists, … More Braces
And shining in the green field As though they are just-painted models In someone’s miniature world, Set just So as We fly down 577 while Sun and rain leapfrog over each other, Empty houses, fallow fields, A woman pulling weeds In a rectangular patch Reclaimed from the wild, Destined for the wild In 40 years … More Black Horses Wet
I am drunk on this new summer twilight, the world’s wash is golden-hued burdens liberally poured, and so I will roll in the fields where the corn is laid out in straight, sober lines, the light Creeping between them like water rising slow – I will lick the tree trunks and the underside of leaves … More One For the Road
This deep June evening with the sun pulling away from the sky Sinking into the earth, its journey more than half gone, like mine – This soft gold light finds a way through the blossoming dogwood, Lights up the slats on the barn with gossamer gold, makes beautiful The old; This bluebird dead on the … More Everything About this Bike Ride Tells Me I am Going to Die
Halfway North 