Everything About this Bike Ride Tells Me I am Going to Die

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

Comes Now Spring

  Late March slumps against Lake Michigan – Cold and brown with patches of crusted snow frozen to the face of the obstinate earth, wind whips the eyes and tears freeze;   Perhaps, then, we can be absolved, when watching the mute six o’clock news during the Friday fish fry, Brandy Old Fashioneds in hand, … More Comes Now Spring

Folding Winter

Brown beer bottle clots spot Winter’s arterial ditches; He coughs up litter – golden bow from a Christmas wreath, a decaying newspaper fat with ads. A dead deer is suspended in the cold water at the edge of the forest, glassy eyed – a Russian Tsar, preserved; Winter clings to the brown land, a lover … More Folding Winter

Match Girl

The year before the plane finally nosed into the frigid winter sky Was the slow grating scrape of a wooden match along the cold cement, Until I burst into a bright circle of flame; all else recedes in the Haitian heat; Tiny stuttering flames of Kreyol a flicking tongue against the landscape; (rutted and rock-strewn … More Match Girl

Dark Rides

Dark spreads like blood pooling beneath the bruised skin, but warm – Or as though the earth is an eye, lids closing slowly and shadowing inward, And in this swelling night, in this place slowly cooling to the touch, The air compressor blasts and growls, channeling breath into the long-resting tires, So they may ride … More Dark Rides