But lo here is hot coffee and from the corner Nina Simone croons and there is a snowy slope to the silent white river stopped from its babble by a sliver of flat white sky like a shushing finger against chattering lips – This cabin is already stove through with falling pines or burned to … More The Cup is Already Broken
when the rain lessened we hauled our plastic Adirondack chairs in one hand and Old Fashioneds in the other down to the river, down to the dock, and sat there – the dock or the river just beneath the current lifting the water through the slats soaking our shorts from below while the rain continued … More Rain on the River
If you can get past the pictures of men holding fish men in the bathroom mirror men shirtless in bed with their dogs men lifting weights in gyms men with guns men with cheap bottles of beer men with Maga Hats men in their cars men on motorcycles men on barstools men making kissy faces … More The Detritus of Hope and Unopened Scotch
There is a tiny garter snake coiled in a slat on the dock where the flood laid down a tangle of grass; when I pass by it darts up and glides across the boards and falls dramatically, comically, into the reeds. From my paddle board the river is glassine, the setting sun’s reflection a smooth … More While the World Slowly Fragments
I. The weekend after the spring snowstorm that brought down trees with with wind and weight we are all at the gas station filling up our portable tanks for the generators before we hit the dollar store for candlesticks, bottled water, batteries. The checkout girl tells me “I made my kids go for a run.” … More Elemental
in this snow-dark wood i by wolves am torn asunder raise your glass to their howl for today i followed after the tracks of an absent otter who soundless belly-slid toward one round black hole on this ice-trimmed river from the fragile edge; there all tracks end, there always one moment perches on the brink … More if tonight
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
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
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
Halfway North 