Wild turkeys return
to the hillside trail, while
I run forward—

ruining

this dawn
with my legs
for oars.

Dew + insects.

I hear rustling in a tangle
of mature trees and overgrowth
as I run by. Chipmunk probably.

Oh, no, I play what if
in the extreme: a bear,
a coyote, a bobcat, another

human hiding in the understory
from danger in the open.
I stop, look for a way

in. Oversized dragonflies
helicopter overhead.
I take their iridescence

as a sign to absorb
whatever comes next.
Parting the rushes,

I see it. The bog.

What isn’t visible:
mummified bodies keep
quiet along the false bottom.

This is no secret track
only patience will reward. This is
an entirely new language

I want to float on.
My soggy green limbs
do not resist.

It’s the one who’s always smiling
you fear more than a stone

wall of memories covered in
gregarious graffiti. Trust

twists its way into a frown
with much less effort. The lone turkey

that appears again, poking in the grass
beside the soccer field fence,

gets more of your sympathy
than any gang would.

A peloton of cyclists churns dangerously
close as you fight to keep

your own pace. You beat
the freight train across the tracks.

Wave to the engineer once you’re safely
on the other side. You’re too old

to hop on. Not ready to become
a ghost. Too scared to ghost

an imposter. You are
the imposter. Dust

still on your shoes.
Not ready to be ghosted

just because the song doesn’t live
up to the riff. The bird man’s back.

The geese are gone. More ducks
than you can remember

swim beneath the tree bent
over the lake to protect them.

No one is screaming
in the park at dawn today.

A vessel kills itself
to overcome a fear of heights

a thousand miles away, and back
here nowhere near

a tidal estuary, a building

gets deconstructed accurately
without precision. All concrete

and chrome-tinted windows,
it’s a velcro afternoon

slipping into a crushed
velvet civil twilight. You know

to stay low—an open-top hopper
filled with gravel ahead.

I am very honored and excited to be invited to serve as a poetry teaching assistant (TA) at The Writer’s Hotel Maine MiniMFA Writers Conference next June in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

You can learn more here.