No word in this language
I inhale/exhale
can release the last 36 hours
to their rightful wild.

There’s James Brown.
Is he still alive?
A stranger asks.

Rogue stanzas need to interrupt love
poems when they begin to stick
too well to the soft side
of a fall into the river.

They snake around themselves
sometimes slithering
through tunnels, down slides
to exclaim

DUENDE, SAUDADE,
and other
single
word poems.

To laugh inside a church
while attending a funeral
is the most
beautiful answer

to float through
in a repainted blue canoe.