You see the storm before
tiny hail stones ping off
my long-billed cap
as I run the trail. You know

three poems I’ve written
about you will be published
before I receive
the acceptance email.

You hear the robin sing
before she opens her mouth.
You smell the wild roses
along East Chop Drive

before I reach the island.

You hear my ginger scent
shatter into tiny pieces
on the bathroom floor
before I put it on the shelf.

You taste the moonlight
before I catch it
on the tip of my tongue—
every time.

You swim across the wake
before the dinghy with my name on it
is dragged from the rocky beach
into the water. You laugh

at the bubbles
before I find the maker
machine on the porch
to a century and a half old hotel.

You say “tragic”
before it happens.

You sense the plane
taking off before I board
to fly back
to Cleveland to attend

your funeral. You wave good-bye

to the fog before it drapes
the sky above the ocean,
concealing all doubt.
You see the ferry emerge

on the horizon before
it leaves Woods Hole.
You wipe my tears before
I feel dampness on my cheek.

Were those pigeons
on the window sill yesterday
fighting, or? A female cardinal tilts
her head and flutters
her wings, and I’m in
love. Robins and rabbits
(mostly tiny ones)
dart in and out
of the prairie grass
and abundance
of wildflowers. A great blue
heron on the southern bank
of Cedar Lake shows no
fear beside the trail
as I pass. Me, startled, it,
so still. Did the squirrel fall,
or was it pushed,
from the tree in Kenwood Park’s
low land? Even from this distance,
I hear the thump—then stillness.

It rains more
on Fridays in summer. That great blue
heron standing long-legged
(and bending)

in your path is the same
bird you saw wading in another
lake a month ago. The red-
winged blackbird

that slashed the air
behind the back
of your skull can tell
you’re becoming


[ambivalent | deliberate | asexual |
disinterested | astounded | distilled]


The hens and toms
congregating across the street
and giant island swan floating
among reeds halfway

across the country
don’t care
what you are
(or how) becoming.

Each drop of water
is connected
to the next.
An ocean murmurs
inside me. Even here,
among prairie grasses
and deer half hidden
within a grove of cedars
and birches, shifting
tides define me.

If I could not taste you,
coffee, would I still want you?

If I could not hear you,
song, would I still play you?

If I could not see you,
sky, would I still believe in you?

If I could not smell you,
wildfire, would I still fear you?

If I could not touch you,
island, would I still be alive?

I’ve been bumping
into trees my whole life.

The mushroom tales
and solve for infinity equations

we’ve dreamed up—
only possible when arms

and bark collide. The way
we shade the wood ducks

and mallards and
Canada geese and rock

pigeons and robins and
red-winged blackbirds

and one great blue heron

beside the wetland island
inside the northern limb

of the lake. The way
their bumping space

could only arise
from the gnarled oak

growing sideways
over the water.

A weekend in the waiting
room, she’s afraid
for the ducklings she hasn’t seen
in days. In the waiting
room, she’s hoping
the mama has hidden them
in the cattails—
in the lake’s waiting
room where we can’t
find anything beyond
ourselves. Desperate to know.
Murky outbursts tucked inside
the city’s light pollution
our only entertainment.

a question
I cannot answer.
I might ask the latest

brood of goslings
that appears with their parents
beside the lake.

(Pray I don’t startle them).
Or I could ask the double rainbow
high in the sky before it fades.

Or the disembodied voice
as it makes an emergency
announcement over the PA.

The student union is closing
early due to protesters
connecting their voices

to their bodies outside.
I’m afraid to ask the poets inside
who are allowed to keep reading

after the university locks
the bathroom doors. You know,
the ones—the poets who know how

to plant seeds of humanity
in the earth with their bare hands,
more lyrical than any trowel.

I should ask the scorched
and pungent-smelling prairie,
its soil blackened on purpose

to encourage it own native growth.
I would ask the red-winged blackbirds
that will reach the field soon,

ready to hunt for a new crop
of insects as it arises,
if I could. I can’t

ask the duff layer,
now burned off,
one more time before

I turn it over

to embrace the unidentifiable
hum vibrating deep within
the roots, growing louder and louder.

Sometimes it snows
just as the cherry trees blossom,
the forsythia has bloomed,
the willows are flowing green.

The roadside Siberian squill
has delivered its flowering blueness
for the season. I mistake
its basal leaves for blades

of ordinary grass.
I’m no gardener. More
delighted by the wood ducks
as they mingle with pigeons

beside the old iron footbridge.
Someone has removed
the half-eaten rabbit
and used condom

from the trail. Merciful
for whom? There is no salinity
advisory committee
to join here. I wait

for the pedestrian one’s
answer. Do they want me?
The National Cremation Society
does, according to the mailer

I received earlier this month. Cruel?
Pragmatic? Nowhere near
as kind to the planet
as tree pod or sea

burials. When I can no longer shed
a tear, I will float for a moment

with all the other buoys
before scattering the remains
of what it meant for us
to be made of sterner stuff.

I see a bruised sky
above empty streets at dawn.
I don’t ask if the sky fought back.

Is that Ruth Stone’s “still white
stilted heron” I see, no longer still—
now swooping across

the small park lake? I don’t ask
for permission before bending
my own knees

in the opposite direction
as a gesture of solidarity.
No train in sight to ride.

I see a photograph of ice disks
in the midst of slamming
against their doppelgängers.

I don’t ask why now.
Is that a sliver of the moon
I see before another dawn?

Everyone’s talking about
its upcoming x-country
dance tour with the sun.

I don’t ask why it won’t
be coming to our town.
I see a man argue

with a utility pole.
Not the one an SUV
smashed into yesterday.

I don’t ask if
the pole is okay.
Is that the East Coast

I see pretending to be
the West Coast?
Nothing shaking here

in the middle. I don’t ask.

I see you, boy, taking
the titular role in my dream
two nights in a row.

I see you, city, aftershocks
and all, demand to be
more than mere location.

Windowless bars beneath
elevated subway tracks bleed
into a woman you both know

who shames all of us
in a haughty voice
for looking for a place

to drink in the middle
of the afternoon bleeds
into a serpentine footrace course

in a vacant lot (distance unknown)
bleeds into people I know
from the Midwest

laughing with people I knew
from the East Coast
when I forget Willa Cather

had a New York City life.
And I don’t ask if it’s my turn
to remind them

how her forgotten black plough
was once “heroic in size,
a picture writing on the sun.”

Everyone who has left
the Central Time Zone sees
why I no longer ask if they remember

what it’s like to live more

than 25 miles from an ocean.
I took myself out of the running
so many high tides ago.

Note: The poem includes quotes from Ruth Stone’s poem “Train Ride” and Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia.