Sometimes it snows
just as the cherry trees blossom,
the forsythia has bloomed,
the willows are flowing green.

The roadside Siberian squill
has delivered its flowering blueness
for the season. I mistake
its basal leaves for blades

of ordinary grass.
I’m no gardener. More
delighted by the wood ducks
as they mingle with pigeons

beside the old iron footbridge.
Someone has removed
the half-eaten rabbit
and used condom

from the trail. Merciful
for whom? There is no salinity
advisory committee
to join here. I wait

for the pedestrian one’s
answer. Do they want me?
The National Cremation Society
does, according to the mailer

I received earlier this month. Cruel?
Pragmatic? Nowhere near
as kind to the planet
as tree pod or sea

burials. When I can no longer shed
a tear, I will float for a moment

with all the other buoys
before scattering the remains
of what it meant for us
to be made of sterner stuff.

I see a bruised sky
above empty streets at dawn.
I don’t ask if the sky fought back.

Is that Ruth Stone’s “still white
stilted heron” I see, no longer still—
now swooping across

the small park lake? I don’t ask
for permission before bending
my own knees

in the opposite direction
as a gesture of solidarity.
No train in sight to ride.

I see a photograph of ice disks
in the midst of slamming
against their doppelgängers.

I don’t ask why now.
Is that a sliver of the moon
I see before another dawn?

Everyone’s talking about
its upcoming x-country
dance tour with the sun.

I don’t ask why it won’t
be coming to our town.
I see a man argue

with a utility pole.
Not the one an SUV
smashed into yesterday.

I don’t ask if
the pole is okay.
Is that the East Coast

I see pretending to be
the West Coast?
Nothing shaking here

in the middle. I don’t ask.

I see you, boy, taking
the titular role in my dream
two nights in a row.

I see you, city, aftershocks
and all, demand to be
more than mere location.

Windowless bars beneath
elevated subway tracks bleed
into a woman you both know

who shames all of us
in a haughty voice
for looking for a place

to drink in the middle
of the afternoon bleeds
into a serpentine footrace course

in a vacant lot (distance unknown)
bleeds into people I know
from the Midwest

laughing with people I knew
from the East Coast
when I forget Willa Cather

had a New York City life.
And I don’t ask if it’s my turn
to remind them

how her forgotten black plough
was once “heroic in size,
a picture writing on the sun.”

Everyone who has left
the Central Time Zone sees
why I no longer ask if they remember

what it’s like to live more

than 25 miles from an ocean.
I took myself out of the running
so many high tides ago.

Note: The poem includes quotes from Ruth Stone’s poem “Train Ride” and Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia.

You would walk the bleeding
edges of this dormant wild

garden barefoot in March before
it begins. You would cross

mud-seeping stepping stones
surrounded by sideways-growing

moss

down the slope
onto a winding

woonerf he dreams up
for you in the middle

of the night. You would risk it—
leave the safety of city lights

to see a waning
gibbous moon glow again

in the distance. You would travel
by helicopter or Cessna

to the island,
and you would pay the fare

in quarters. You would not care
if he were watching

when you took
the amphitheater stage.

You would not need
to interrupt the bare birches

swaying in tear-jerking wind.
You would shout:

“Let no more bridges collapse!”

to the dark sky
before diving into the cold

black water below,
fully clothed this time.

You would embrace the spellbinding
amnesia without sipping a drop.

The blank wall and empty floor
(and the taunting,

white space between)
would not stop you

from entering the beautility
shed, despite all that

fear you carry
like a concealed weapon.

You would have answered
him by now.

You would have told her
you know. And you would have

listened to the bells
of Notre Dame

ring on the anniversary
of the fire without asking why,

or running to the nearest
cellar door. You would let

your heart pound
till the scent of incense

calms your nerves.
And you would refuse

to be forced to defend
your atheism on this Saturday.

The day after, or the day before.
You would whisper,

“I will build a new one.”
The fish would come to you,

and you would know how
to feed them.

You would be singing by now—
if you were brave.

I have not thought of you in so long.
Yet there you are in the foreground

of my grandmother’s painting
of her Vineyard beach cottage.

It’s still there. She’s not. Are you?
I don’t know

who owns the property,
who owns you, who owns

any of us. More marsh
than pond, you can own that.

The poodle always came home
with ticks in her tightly wound fur

after running through your eelgrass
wetland hem. Grandma gave you

a faded blue hue in contrast
to the turquoise sound behind

the house captured in an array
of grays and whites.

I wonder how you are doing.
What’s stirring within you:

turtles, various small fish,
a snake or two, herons waiting

in a tangle of willows beside you.
I’m embarrassed to say

I don’t know if you’re fresh
or salt. My grandmother knew.

I know you cannot reveal
the secrets she shared with you

as she walked along your banks.
Did she come to you to ask

for guidance about what to do
with her life when she was a teen,

spending summers at the nearby
Methodist campground?

You’ll never tell.

A forced loner as an only child,
she envied what she imagined

my sisters and I had growing up.
We all concoct stories

about other people’s exteriors
based on our own interior turmoil.

I imagine you once wished
to be a tidal estuary

with a permanent connection
to the ocean.

Dreams of boisterous, brackish
exchanges. You’ll never tell.

The map shows three other
Lily Ponds scattered across the island.

How lucky you are
to have so many sisters.

I write to my mother weekly.
Short notes with one or two thoughts,

a news item, always signed “Always.”
I can ask her what she remembers

about you. I make no promises.
Next time I’m on the island,

I will look harder for you
within the dramatic overgrowth

of evergreens and shrubs beyond
the ever-shrinking shoreline.

What if there were an ocean
in the middle
of North America?
I don’t mean some prehistoric
inland sea. I mean
a vast modern body of salt

water

that cleaves the land
between. Would families
still sell mango slices
on the side of the highway
in early March? It’s not funny.
And it’s not a bone. The nerve

of you coming here all elbows
and full of suggestions
for how to stop
the blood from seeping
through the diagonal seam
I accidentally carve

into my thumb
with a vegetable knife
after everyone has gone
to bed. We decide
we must go swimming
in the silent sound.

You say I wear the red
line so well. I say
you are a fool and a liar
for claiming to see colors
in the dark. I don’t realize
the pier piling is there

till it’s too late. You hold
your breath so long before
exhaling a whisper—
the Zamboni driver qualifies
as a friend. I’ll never know
why you mention him now.

Do you really believe
he’s a cannibal?
My mind slips forward
three months when I will be
searching through a coastal airport
for the bus to the ferry

to the island.

Everyone will be laughing
about trying to herd leaf sheep
with a dogfish so close
to a sandbar. I will swear I see
their sweet little black eyes
staring back at me

the first time we float

together past the harbor
buoy. Green to embrace the lefty
way our signals will cross
over, of course. Chloroplast
kleptomaniacs will light up
our lives without complaint.

Turns out we were an incomplete
theory. Our drifting clouded by
blocked chimneys.

And then even our rift failed.
We were destined
never to become

an ocean.

We polished our exposed, surface
rocks for too long. Did we wag
our tails while dreaming

of each other in our sleep?
What a drag it was to realize
you would never get

how devastating it was
to learn about Jesus
in a Quonset hut

with no heat
or natural water basins
nearby to admire.

When I told you
I wanted to get lost
on the island again,

you replied you wanted
to get lost, too,
in the mystery

of a lone rose petal fallen
on a narrow corridor runner.
We slipped beneath

Lake Superior
and did not drown.
Slippery elm bark tea

still brewing inside
the cabin when we returned.
When we stopped struggling,

we knew. We traipsed
across the black volcanic
cliffs of the North Shore

with nothing left to say.
Our 1.1 billion-year-old scar
fresh as the moon’s silence.

“There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”
—James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”


She wants to be the one
who has no fear

of breaking
the fourth wall

without a hammer.
Let plaster collect beneath

her fingernails.
She would walk without

a dog. Fish
without water. Survive

without being even
a footnote

in six-point type. Lies
no one’s going to believe.

She would sacrifice
everything to deliver these

eyes

to all of you.
She would no longer deny

the withdrawal its cup
of air. She wants

to say cup of trembling
without conjuring

all that. There she goes—
staring again.


“And I’ve felt stars outside
shining in my veins
I met the big blue light
face to face”
—Gold Star, “Sonny’s Blues

Psst, I have a secret.
Is this a symptom?

Hearing my own voice
calling out loud

in an empty field.
The sun shines brilliantly—

spilling all over the prairie,
finally fully covered

in snow.

I know you couldn’t wait
for me. I needed to find

my own bottom. Could not
borrow yours. My diagnosis

mine to make. Spared. Then not.
A week of

my life erased.
I tried to wipe them all

off the calendar
back then. Now,

I say all this
to remind the stars

(I cannot see)
how much I would give

to make my own
light. I whisper only to them

what the trail across that prairie
means to me. I return to things.

So long as she knows where
the flashlight is—another ice lantern

has disappeared into a trough
where memories of what winter

used to be have begun to collect:
ice fishing parties, outdoor hockey

games, x-country skiing, the porch
doubling as an extra freezer. So long

as the torch continues to burn
against the slate sky. So long as

the riddle keeps searching
for its hook, which slipped

into/onto

this ice melt mess of a lake
just as February began

to break through. So long
as she runs in shorts in the dead

of what used to be the longest
season in Minnesota. So long

as the other shoe dangles
precariously from a confused

birch branch. So long
as she leaves

messages in black
and blue ink on every flat surface

for her future self
who may not remember

any of this. So long as she can
still hear that strangely familiar

melodic voice: Do I dare
be so bold as to ask what’s next?

What are you?

Because the Bronx
is getting a public observatory,
and the dome will sing lullabies

to the reservoir and field in
the dark. Because another long-armed

poem sweeps in and around
all those dusty corners
and tenuously dangling

webs in search
of a true connection.

Because beyond the river
and sloping woods
behind an airport. Because

you can’t get there from here,
and the bridle path taunts

us from the other side.
Because shadows scour
graffiti-drenched concrete

beneath the overpass without
erasing a thing. Because cooler air

coming through the passage
after the aroma of spring
defines the last day

in January. Because it won’t last.
Because our trees

could become confused—
roots waking up,
branches leafing out

too early. Because
it’s February now,
and these apple slices

must be eaten before
they turn brown. Because

the falsework will rot soon,
and it will be time for you
to show me what you’ve got.

Because I used to be
merely a gully with a dream.

And what remains
of the ice lanterns
in the front yard.

Because the kiln takes its time
powering down. Because

how do you do

that thing you do?
Because a freight train

heads southwest as I wind
my way northeast. Because
I have Romeo

beside me. Juliet is no longer
leaning on you. Because falling

is not an option. Because
cement, cardboard, ceramic
tiles tucked securely inside

each car rattling by.
Because who am I

to question you
with my mudslide
tendencies? Because the devil’s

backbone is razor sharp.
Because the stars

can be seen in the city at night.