You invite butterflies to check into
your bug hotel. You never know.

Everything’s in dispute these days.
Mystery boarders may burrow

in the hollows beneath the stairs.
You build over old mistakes.

The copper trimmed hipped
rooftop. The vertical cypress

siding. The slotted
front entrance. You believe

you have thought of everything
this time. A tall mounting stake rises

above the last words
you murmur at dawn.

The ladybug is a beetle
is not always a lady

the way those polka-dotted scarlet
domes open to expose

the real secret: escape wings
that unfold to four times

the size of the mere body. Sprung
free, let’s fly away abroad

before the warning
coloration flames flicker out.

Let’s sip tainted wine by the bottle,
a soft-spoken whisper drifts

through open windows
on the backs of afternoon

gusts. As the sun sets, mourning
cloaks settle into a lone pile

of logs stacked against an undisturbed,
lichen-encrusted stone wall—

without mortar. The only
protection a funeral

home moon garden needs.

As night blooms,
white-lined sphinx moths

come to mark the pale evening
primroses blessed.

It’s in your tree.
It’s in your house.
It’s in your dream

of a treehouse
your father built
for your sisters and you

in a tangle of Massachusetts pine.

Something about an uneven ladder,
an exposed nail, a tetanus shot
before you wake. Its blood

red nymph bodies come to molt
into your closed-eye hallucinations.
The international orange outline

of its black adult wings
warns you not to eat it.
It may not be a stink bug,

but it will stink
just the same if you bite
into its hardened shell.

Will taste worse
than any other bug
you’ve tried before.

Its wants are simple—sucking

on seeds like a whittler
on a porch, carving tiny
plump evening grosbeaks

perched precariously
on skinny branches
from flaming box elder wood.

Some days you wish
you could wrap yourself tightly
in an ash gray bark

to protect yourself
from the hungry AI poets
who creep around

the backyard seeking flat oval rocks
to sun themselves on. Swarms
of them start bonfires

in thickets of invasive species
after midnight as they drain
enough flasks of liquid

courage to plot their dawn invasion
through the nearest crack
in the stucco facade.

It’s in your book,

staining your thoughts
in glorious geometries.
Oh, bug, be true.

And she wears merlot
on her lips. It’s no slur
to say it out loud. Not a slip

of the tongue
down the throat.
A little too bright, too

hot for her aging face.
And the boundary between
mouth and oxbow lake has become

so blurred.

And there’s no vineyard
on the Vineyard anymore.
And the wine is

neither new
nor old. It plays both sides
of the social construct

when drunken corpses
pass out beneath bur oaks
on banks

of sleepy winding rivers
on humid summer afternoons
in upper valleys.

And a tongue in cheek
reviver will soon flow
into shakers from a steep

waterfall. And it could be
dancing green fairies
released from an absinthe bottle

cause her to hallucinate
her way into a prairie roof
raising before collapsing.

A stampede of pink
elephants making
a mess of the meadow. Or,

it could be the microdot
she swallows while sitting
on a window ledge

on the fourth floor
of a coed dorm
on a perfect early September

day last century (years
before Teenage Fanclub recorded
“It’s All in My Mind”).

Beware those mornings most

this millennium. Or,
it could be she is not breathless
in the presence

of such an evocative mist,
but merely choking on smog
that stagnant air won’t release

for weeks. Or, it doesn’t matter
at all—the natural color
of her lips, more matte dusty rose

than polished ruby, is enough.

The egg that won’t
hatch | the bubble
that won’t rise | the door
that won’t burst
open | the vacuum
that won’t stop
whirring breathlessly | the cement
mixer that won’t stir
or disturb the cliff | the escape
room that won’t illuminate
a clue | the camera that won’t
darken your threshold | the night
that won’t end | the star
that won’t be
judged | the cavity
that won’t absorb
the sound
of your thoughts | the cavern
that won’t collapse
into thousands of tiny flaming
punked-out grottoes | the tunnel
that won’t explode under
pressure | the only
catacomb that won’t
adapt | the ossuary that won’t preserve
your movements | the carrel
that won’t hurt
your writing hand
even if it’s
the left one | the flask
that won’t drip
or contain another morning
that breaks too early | the heart
that won’t swoon | the tent
that won’t sway too much
or obstruct our view
of the northern lights | the vessel
that won’t sink
under the weight
of a breath
of fresh air or other
ruin residue | and the vestibule
that will protect
our wishes
including that everyone
slips painlessly away
in their sleep
when it’s time—
no exceptions

Above a winter
prairie landscape,
the moon

startles me.

In the middle
of the sky
in the middle

of Day 1.

79.5%
illuminated
(I learn later).

A plane scrapes

the bottom
of our
nearest, dearest

heavenly body.

Jetting northeast,
where’s it
headed?

Sault Ste. Marie.

Montreal. Keflavik.
London. Paris.
Amsterdam. Frankfurt.

Black-capped terns

in flight. Draw
a wider
full circle

beyond blue.