In early October along the river’s edge, deer hooves have printed the mud with quotation marks, although they had nothing to report. They drank the cold water in silence and slipped back into the woods. It’s not yet five o’clock but the sun is already stumbling sideways and falling behind the Wisconsin treeline, rays flailing … More Undone
And we will see there only ordinary things, constellations of dew, only miracles. I will meet you in the woods And we will carry there only our temporal minds, bodies, spirits, only these eternal. I will meet you in the woods And we will find there only things deep and green and growing, only decay. … More I Will Meet You in the Woods
Waterbugs unzipping the seam of river, hundreds of Vs opening before me, it is warm but I know what lies ahead the mirrored clouds afloat on the smooth surface in the late August twilight now sink to the riverbed like cotton candy autumn leaves while fat walleye heave and leave blooms of mud behind in … More Falling Through
All I have is a list, a promise of 11% back, and an unwieldy cold wet metal cart into which I throw the too-big chainsaw gloves for men, the joint compound to hold naked seams together. I’m trying to reconstruct true north. In the garden center aisle with the grass seed, dozens of little birds … More The Birds of Menard’s II
(for Gretchen) The thing about knowing about gravity, (this is a hard thing not to know), about skinned knees and errant ground balls and legs broken after launching from stairs – is that sometimes when you see the body suspended, mid-air, (the cliff or the dock or the rooftop behind), all you can think of … More Gravity
Finally I drive away from that old house in the city where drama was spooling out across the little screen I held: alcohol, of course, family wounds, threats of suicide. I pocket that silenced screen like a take-out container of active angst – and I go to Menard’s, where I hear you can save big … More The Birds of Menard’s – I, uncut
I’ve cast the three who lived (thrown, broken, mending) upon the river of the world (flown, dammed, bending) they drift in solemn leisure (whether will or chance or fate) like shining broken windows (not shy not strong not vain) their wings catch specks of twilight (the eddies hold them fast). Three pulled toward the lake … More Casting Die
Scientists say that distance equals speed times time but our universes collided and sailed a million miles apart even though the erosion of our hearts was glacial – each breath a tiny wave against the ruddy shore, each heartbeat washing itself away a little more. They say that speed is distance divided by time, but … More Valentine’s Day Worksheet
Out in a windswept January night under the black quilt of sky that is tucked tightly over the Keweenaw peninsula, the stone foundation of a barn lies unsleeping; instead she’s feeling, like a phantom limb, the heft and surety of the hay mow, the ache of splintered barn boards, the impatience of the rusted tractor, … More Phantom Limb
Adam’s heart suddenly shuttered but now dives and flutters in a waiting rib cage not his own – a cardinal who lost his song he hopped up strong, he perched on the sill and pecked at the pane he pecked at the pain asking to be let in to be let out so another could … More Auld Lang Syne
Halfway North 