Afternoon Poems

Block E 2011

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A down feather on my left
sweater sleeve, empty

beer bottle buffed with a fresh coat
of snow on the sidewalk. Another
year left behind, another
comes into view. Beginnings often start

with a dormancy period.
Renewal can happen

while we sleep and the birds
are away. A woman cold and tight
in her long great coat kicks
the bottle toward the café exterior wall

where it spins and stops short
of becoming a noise maker

I didn’t miss hearing. Still
wouldn’t wake the dead
even on a day like today
when bottles roll toward me

as if the world has taken
a sudden turn.

Dead Relative Society Minutes

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This Wuthering Heights morning
will give way to nothing

more than a Kentucky afternoon
into a Mississippi River night. Ice

dams and avalanches
and floods—let them be.
What will be will be
on moor, in prohibition speak

easy cave, under Prairie
School eave overnight.

25 December 2010

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Varnished giclée prints drop her
onto an old farmstead’s surround
with pronounced trees
and roots. She is relieved

not to be
the only one who needs a public
place to be open today—one
besides a church,

or cineplex. She’s more interested
in tiny rebirths
than one monumental birth—those moments
that can unpack themselves
onto any given day’s matte canvas.

Nonchalance

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This color collision—red
splayed onto green—isn’t
on purpose. She would not presume
to celebrate what cannot be

celebrated by someone
whose beliefs lie
inside another palette,
reveal themselves without complementary

aids. It happens—pigments
go where they must, or
where they might. It is that
she chooses this pariah

life—this bundle of exploded light
debris—which spells out memories
left unretrieved. It is this

abandonment
to be true.

Recount

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Four children four
seasons—does it begin
with spring or winter?
It all depends—

whether we are dormant
before we live, whether
we can begin again, whether
autumn counts at all.

Living Outside the Notes (Day 2,963)

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Ink smears over knuckles,
a left-hander drags
her thoughts through the past.
No moment
is left clean.

Cincinnati

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Bent spoons on display, the Ohio
down the hill. What is this

warmer place
that is a stranger to me,

that harbors the soul
of someone so familiar—

now gone? This is
where I am now.

Ohio Cruising Altitude

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Is this the right number
of times to have lost
myself to this sound—yours? To fly

solo over traffic
air currents low enough
to see each housing

development curl
into its cul de sac
mortal coil, to trace

each bend in the rivers between
Cincinnati and Cleveland—Little
Miami, Mohican, Cuyahoga,

Chagrin. To be high

enough to know it is possible
to survive this state
without losing my sense

of direction for the gathering
of waters. The tally stretches across
the greatest mud. Take me home.

No More Delivery

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On farmer’s market
day, she helps the blind
man find his time

to cross. The colors
of a vegetable stand meld
into one kaleidoscope

wish—to do
these things without
announcing them

as some addict’s letter
to the world. This is not
what Emily meant.

A Seasonal Man

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For Steve

A spring rain
essence hangs in the air
on a Saturday morning
in October, triggers memories

of any season
up for grabs. We hunt for rats
in the NYC subway,
on its streets, behind

its garbage bins
in alleys. Summer in the City
always makes a statement
to the nose. Bad

puns and monotony
breaking drinks to keep us
warm on a Minnesota winter
night. I came unprepared. You

had no idea what you were
getting yourself into—out of.
On the west bank
of the Saint Croix,

we read through
all I had written
come spring. It came
so violently, I almost faded

dead away
by my own hand. Was it yours
that crossed out

the almost

18 years later—the slow
desperation of a soul dying
to be free.