this blustery March afternoon I’m crossing what is still my back yard for a time drill in hand, a spile, a bright blue bag – 38 degrees, sandals skirting dried dog poop among brown leaves that fell, bright, the autumn before; the hole on the underside of the spile, yesterday confounded me but the sap … More Sap, Rising
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
That afternoon at the cabin we sat by the river after I had cut up those small trees that you dropped at my feet with the tractor – (an offering, a challenge, one that I tore through haphazardly with the new chainsaw, black and yellow like a drunken, terrible bumblebee). It was quiet after all … More The Nest (Or, a Father Considers the Odds of Raising Successful Small-Mouth Bass Offspring)
I. Shady Lane barefoot at twilight we play Ghosts in the Graveyard vanishing in dark II. Rook cards slap on the porch after-dinner Manhattans kids drunk with freedom III. Beckoning June is ever-dusk fireflies wink in gangly grass as I pedal home
First winter snow has tripped and falls and falls, I lace my boots and take my sheltered lens; Behind me, windows throw a yellow pall of slanted patches on white-trousered lawns; Snow stills the trees and fills the prints of those who walked ahead along the unlit road; We will not meet, my pace unhurried … More Unleashed (A Sonnet)
I. What happens To the bicycles in Munich; The ones punctuating the cobblestone paths – Locked to the bike racks, lampposts, street signs In sun, rain, sleet, snow, heat Wheels bent into parentheses, Or missing entirely, Or outwardly fine, Frames rusted, scratched, or gleaming, Just Forgotten about entirely locked up and misremembered rented and abandoned … More Fine Ruin (Bicycles in Munich)
This poet pinned behind his ’63 Smith Corona at the art fair; he tilts his hat and waits for you To come, to ask him to free this poem not yet written, the one now held hostage inchoate in the fractal web of ether- He’ll lure it onto the page with whispers and worn keys … More Catch and Release
Halfway North 