this is no east
of Eden / no fratricide
lake valley

the freighters
come and go
at all hours

the aerial lift bridge
goes up and down
to the same beat

the air numbs
the pain / named or not

I wake in another
hotel room
near another waterfront

for a few brief moments
cannot remember
fresh or salt today

cannot shake
the jamais vu

the sandy stretches
I misplace
beneath my feet

the very feet
I might not recognize
moving in the dark

I look up and wonder how
the aurora borealis
looks from this side

could be time
to redefine too cold
to swim in

I could repeat the one
about pretending to be
a tourist in my own town.
I could map a new one
based on a hungover memory
of a lake freighter,
an aerial lift bridge,
and a temper that refused to be

quenched—mine.
I could write
the color red
out of existence,
and the hotel would
still whisper home
to gravity’s
cooled-off night.

It hurts
the ghost.
It laughs
across a ford.
It blinks in unison
with the light
on the broken table.
It will hurt again.

This unnecessary body
balances against
a persistent wind.

The water tower!
Why didn’t I think of it before?

And the sky photobombing above
the way my dead father
would have insisted.

30

the Your Speed sign reads

you are going nowhere

so fast

I cannot keep up

with your duotone purpose

if I were you

I would confess

you suffer

from such severe

impostor syndrome

because you are

an impostor

those clowns

who wore masks

with your parents’ faces

painted on them

started it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

your real mother and father

did speed away so fast

I cannot say where

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it reads

keep your car blindness

to yourself

these vagabond waters
rush the story
of a seasonal creek

how many more times
will a hapless driver crash
into the side of the old red barn

no one grows anything
on a vine / anything for the new wine
on this strip of land anymore

a bend in the road
another dead man’s curve
threatens more than death

more than a man / where are the women
in this tangle of exposed
channel bed debris

I’m crossing the bridge
again asking for it
any answer to any question

that contains moving
earth along / I eat
the grapes I don’t drink

the small concrete
bridge I crossed
twice a day
for a week
arches over

a seasonal creek
bed bone dry and
filled with gravel
ferns and clover
growing on either bank

a week
among writers
free flowing
wine and conversation
and freshly generated

poems or
at least
inklings

the week
is over

here I am back
in Minnesota
with its hot nights
and Mississippi
high waters

I miss the Napa Valley
already / into this
longing for all
that did or did not
take place

poems begin
to ferment
as long as
I ever so gently
take place

too large to be a domestic cat
too small to be a full-grown bear
a streak of black fur with four legs
darts across the road at sunrise

not willing to investigate
I pivot / redirect my running route
to Main Street where everything grows
wild at a distance

a shrub / a lost cub
a fire hydrant / a dancing one
on hind legs / pronounced snout
and bulging pentagonal eyes

what if it were a black jaguar
or never before seen
melanistic mountain lion
I will never know how close I came