There is no dragon in this story.
Drawn curtains, rendered hands, no relief.
Bat your eyes the way the willow sways.

No dragon in this story can compete with that scar
on your achilles as it tells a different one,
and the pedestrian bridge holds the rest.

There is no chasing the dragon in this story.
Just a drop of vinegar to cure the grief,
so you can float better in the shade.

Drawn curtains, rendered hands. Let
the relieving pedestrian bridge hold the rest
so you can float her lost letters in the shade.

Drawn curtains, rendered hands, and a belief
in that the scar on your achilles to tell the difference
between just a drop of vinegar and settled grief.

Bat your eyes the way swans float over billows
and the scars of Achilles on a different sea.
You sway better when you don’t throw shade.

Keep your eyes on the willow as it sways
beneath the pedestrian bridge where we will rest
when just a drop of vinegar begins to stir the grief.

I’m excited to have my poem “Holdfast” published in the September issue of The Bluebird Word. You can read the poem here.

for the fog on my sunglasses,
so humid so early,
for noticing the flattened frog
in (no longer on) the pavement.

Forgive me for the way flourishing
tree leaves frame the lake.
Forgive me my limerence
that will not fade,

and the ferns tucked between
wetland flowers beneath
one of several pedestrian
bridges I cross this morning.

Forgive the female
turkey for her unfanned
feathers and the planes
flying overhead.

Forgive me for loving

the way the creek flows
from another lake
and a black and red butterfly
flutters before me.

Handles out, a red
felt bag lays spread eagle
on the ground. It must be

playing dead. There’s a blue
utility hole cover
over there. I see a white

human figure without hands
or feet painted on the pedestrian
trail ahead. Beside it, a white

silhouette of a bicycle with no rider
painted on the bike trail. Blue
recycle bins strategically placed.

The moon hangs white,
almost transparent,
against the pale blue

sky this early in the morning.
I don’t catch the color
of the large object (bird of prey?)

that falls from above, crashes
into an old iron rail bridge. Red
berries on an overgrown shrub—

probably poisonous.

Children play on deep blue
slides in the park. A red
wrong way sign warns riders

to adjust direction.
And, of course, the great blue
heron stands on its perch,

a tree branch rising from the lake.
No sign of an eagle
or wild turkey or any other myths.

Whenever I see one,
I must make it
the subject for the day.
I have no choice.

Its long legs hidden
in the water,
body tilted
slightly forward,

prominent beak poised,
its S neck straightened
for the plunge. Strong
and light and still

and great and blue. Heron,
I whisper as I slip past.

29 years
of stealing
design for poems—stealing
poems for design.
And so
let’s make a mass
timber sonnet
that rewrites itself
every civil dawn.

Let’s meet on the paseo at civil twilight
and disappear into the trail
of lonely stars
before they catch us. Everyone
becomes a thunderstorm
in the middle
of the night

eventually.

Neglected street lamps flicker, barely
Illuminating images left undocumented.
Greetings echo down the block.
He may (or may not) hear them.
Time will frame the edges of his wings

Captured in crested shadows
As he scans the sidewalk for spiders.
Rain will not fall till later.
Darkness will not deter him
In the moment. A dooryard
Nearby holds wrinkled tree bark.
Across branches, he ignores lessons
Learned about the early bird.

I am honored to have my poem “Some Old Crow” published in the Spring 2026 issue of Molecule. Happy Spring!

She’s fog thickening across a prairie
in early March. Residue of the last
shoulder season in muted gold
and rust catches her on alls sides.

She’s full-bleed
escaping from the edge
of another backstory she inherited
about them—doesn’t trust.

She’s fever dreaming
her way into theirs.

She’s filing away images
in a drawer made of ice.
She’s fall down sober
building a birch forest

with reams of peeled paper
bark found stacked
in the flooded wine cellar
(inheritance suspect).

She’s feigning interest
in overnight snow. Fast-talking
the morning away
to get to them first.

Freight train rolling
across the tracks hidden
on albums recorded
under a leaky roof.

She’s fire engine not
red furious with herself
for never learning why
they refuse to leave.

She’s freehand sketching
mist into the picture
further more than farther
from the truth

trail between the acts
of barred owls before dawn.

She’s fracture zone fragile
beneath that concrete skin.
Floor sprung leaping off bluffs
into the scene where she’s phoenix

rising from the ashes
of all those stories
about the unrequited she’s
forgotten. She’s (so) free by now.