Election Year Haiku
September 5, 2020
Fall comes on too strong/ Branches up in summer’s skirt/ Before she thinks no/
Category: Summer
That Summer of the Pandemic, It Was All Falling Apart, It was All Coming Together
July 30, 2020
It’s after eight in the evening, and in this antique light, the Queen Anne’s Lace along the roads watches the sinking sun – hundreds of tatted blooms close up like praying hands, like thousands of empty teacups drained and set upon the sideboard of the day. In the morning they’ll open again to catch the … More That Summer of the Pandemic, It Was All Falling Apart, It was All Coming Together
Waiting for Comet Neowise
July 26, 2020
When I pull onto Sunset Beach Road in the purple twilight, a couple is already standing entwined in front of their truck, tail lights pointed at Lake Michigan, peering into the western sky; I am not the only one who thought to watch from the bay. Do you see anything? they ask, without preamble, as … More Waiting for Comet Neowise
Eye of the Day
September 3, 2019
One common tern hovers high above Lake Michigan, then dives under the waves and back again, its path a ragged stitch from sky purpling like a bruise into water smooth as a mirror, and then back to sky again, pulling together heaven and earth like the closing of a weary eye.
An Old House, These Woods
August 27, 2019
An old house, these woods / sunlight drips through leaky trees / on the forest floor /
Night Market
August 23, 2019
When I look over my shoulder to change lanes on the Leo Frigo bridge high above the bay, I see her reaching over to smooth his long hair – my son’s girlfriend – and it’s as though he’s been cracked open and I’ve seen his heart beating for the first time. It’s crowded, so we … More Night Market
At The Mellen Township Board Meeting
August 22, 2019
It’s the melancholy tail end of summer, a Wednesday night with waning light when I walk into the basement meeting room of the fire department on County Road 342. It smells like 50 years of bureaucracy and a musty bathroom and my claustrophobia tells me there is only one exit but I sign my name … More At The Mellen Township Board Meeting
The Fourth Generation of Monarchs Remember the Future
August 13, 2019
Three generations of monarchs unfurl their wings right where they emerge, dazed, to mate for hours while the world pitches and yaws, dusk to dawn – six weeks spent locked in an off and on fluttering embrace, drifting in circles of lazy lust just along overgrown highways of the driftless area (Trempeleau, Pepin, Eau Claire) … More The Fourth Generation of Monarchs Remember the Future
Cathedral Pines
July 28, 2019
Cathedral pines rock – in this ocean of green waves – I roll through and drown.
Interstitial
July 10, 2019
Five-thirty’s afternoon light fades from the Menominee where this water bug zig-zags northward over the glassy sturgeon-black surface of the river; a needle pulling threads of silver-speckled sunlight together, close as lovers, stitching a narrow pocket into which I slip secretly the ruins of another unmatched summer’s day.
