lace a lake, stitch a street, transcribe a tree, precrease a prairie, compress a cove, sacrifice a sandbar, mobilize a mountain, bleed a bluff, calm a cave, tighten a tide, validate a valley, dub a dune, channel a channel, weave a wetland, idle an island, and, yes, Emily, I know “you cannot fold a flood—and put it in a drawer.”

Ice shoulders wear bad
understatements and blue
bark. The candlelight vigil

in the forest.

The steady doorknob milks
lightning bolts. In winter,
the candlelight vigil

in the forest.

Another purple motivation
smokes the jokes mournfully.
In winter, the candlelight vigil

in the forest

reveals. Flat lullabies
drive thirsty wanderlust. In winter,
the candlelight vigil

in the forest

reveals

our

own

haunting.

As the temperamental moon squares
mischievous Mercury
and the swift-orbiting

planet enters your first house
(of self-identity), you will crave
the freedom

to fly.

I dust off my feathers,
do 8 sets of 12 reps
of lateral wing exercises

on each side,
check the weather app
for wind conditions.

Beware the flames
of your own arrow, Sag.
The duel could be lethal.

Before I finish
preparing for flight,

I release

my guardian angel
from the cedar
closet in the attic,

my duende
from the cage
beneath the cellar stairs.

While I search
for the perfect perch
for take-off,

they step into the alley,
bump fists, remove gloves,
here we go.

She could not break through
the berm barricading the flow
of his thoughts. He silently searches

for her along the eroding bluff
through a tidal marsh beyond
the cove to the lagoon. Hiding

in plain sight in the diminished
dunes, she fears he will never find
her, or say what she needs to hear

(or anything at all). The spit

where they met that moonless
August night has washed away.
What remains cannot be reached

without a wetsuit, mask,
fins, air tank, handful
of worry stones. If only

her transition to shrunken island
with aeolian ripples
were not so complete,

his voice not swallowed whole
by a tidal bore. If only,
the rocky beach.

You keep ignoring the Post-it note
telling you to defrost the freezer.

The sight of the hardened
dollop of toothpaste

on the hardwood floor in the hall
is a comfort:

Out with it, damned
and captive white spot.

Your habit of meandering
from room to room,

rocking back and forth,
is another. No light shines

from the lamp you forget
to plug in again.

Stray blueberries roll beneath
the fridge, never to be retrieved.

You can’t recall where
you got that tiny notebook—

the one with mostly illegible
scribblings in your handwriting

on torn and crumpled pages,
discovered weeks later

under The Complete Works
of Emily Dickinson.

What do you mean by “fire
up the culture of keep going?”

It’s a comfort to give yourself
permission to release the need

to remember anything.
You have nursed the wounded

owl long enough. Let it fly.
You say you don’t keep everything.

Shelves of blank books filled
with contained chaos exist

to call you are a liar.

Still so many messages
left to thaw.

1.
Buy a used dollhouse
at an estate sale & pull
the window blinds down.

2.
Carve the initials
of your first love
into the pantry floor.

3.
Purchase a cactus
& place it
in the living room.

4.
Cut a hole in the roof
& patch it
with pure tree resin.

5.
Take the house outside
& drop it in a bank
of freshly fallen snow.

6.
Leave it in that spot
for the rest
of the season.

7.
Borrow a tiny globe
& magnifying glass
from your neighbor.

8.
Drag the weather-worn
house inside

(it might take several trips if

the structure is no longer
sound).

9.
Place the tiny globe
in the tiny library
with all the tiny books.

10.
Tap it with your finger
to set it
in motion.

11.
Let it spin.

12.
& spin.

13.
& spin some more.

14.
Pause it with a pin.

15.
Use the magnifying glass
to read the location
the pin pricks.

16.
If it’s in the middle
of an ocean,
buy a houseboat.

17.
Get ready

18.
to change

19.
your life.

20.
Repeat
if you don’t like
the results.

21. Bonus Step
Keep moving
till you know you know—
I know I did.

I wake during the 25th
hour between happy and
witching. I peer out

the window to discover
it’s that 5th
season again. Locked

in a tiny bathroom
in New York City’s 6th
borough, I open the fire

escape

door to feel the breeze coming
off the 6th ocean’s surface—

not frigid, not too warm, not
recognizable even with my 6th
sense. The Earth’s 2nd

moon is waning, and the 6th
Great Lake is swallowing hard
1,000 miles in the 5th

direction.

The 10th muse forces me
into a spoken word chant

that lasts beyond the 13th
month in a karaoke bar
on the 3rd bank

of Pittsburgh’s 4th river.
The 13th juror knows how
to make me confess to being

neither guilty
nor innocent. A 3rd
verdict rises

with the 2nd sun.
I count 12 dimensions
and turn off the light.

“There’s really only one ocean”

appears on the 5th
wall in glow-in-the-dark paint.

light. Your power
returns in stages
till you hear the heat
as water begins
to bubble forth.

You forget how
to sit on a stoop
and watch poetry
appear between
the gaps. A sidewalk

in need of repair. You
still have a purpose.
The way you used to
go out after dark
into the black-out

night. The way you embrace
the time before civil
dawn now. Walk
the streets,
counting all the broken

lights. Your power

so entangled in the cords
you unplugged to survive.
Tunnels or skyways—you must
decide which way to travel
all over again.

You own the moment mortgage free
now that the land is so possessed.
Store the car; rewild the park.

You own the moment mortgage free.
Riding in the backseat of a white Jeep,
we thread the day’s closing remarks

with gold. You own the moment
mortgage free. Your smile’s
up for renewal. Remember the bees.

That the land could become

so possessed is the gold
thread to the day’s closing
remarks. Remember the bees.

The land is so possessed with us
riding in the backseat of a white Jeep.
Your smile’s up for renewal.

We store the car, rewild the park, stop
riding in the backseat of white Jeeps
when your smile’s up for renewal.

We stole the car to rewild the park
with gold thread as another day
closes on our renewed smiles.

It’s the sound of a bird’s cheerful
chirps coming from the cattails,

and a mournful cry
from another hidden one.

It’s the unmistakable
quack of city park ducks,

and the angry screech
of a car speeding around

the sculpture garden.
The silent stares

of turkeys hanging
around the unfinished trail

I sneak onto. And the call
and response of geese

as they swim in the lake.
It’s the surface

quiet of woolly bear caterpillars
centimetering along,

and the leaves that scratch
the sidewalk in a warm breeze.

It’s the true hush

of a dead woolly bear
on the pavement.

And the silence of drained
pools now that they’ve shut

down the fountain for the winter
to come. The stridulation

of late-season crickets
marks the morning.

And you, dawn,
I swear I can hear the ocean

in your breath.