This life
offers no refunds.
Security deposits
and warranties meaningless.
You can return it,
but no replacement
will land on your doorstep.

This life
gets darker and darker
till a day in December arrives
when invisible fingers
gently press the button,
prepare to slowly turn
the rotary dimmer switch clockwise.

And a brighter
recycling begins.

From a train window, she watches
tombstones march by in the dark.
It comes so early these days.

Life can be so long.
In a superstitious land,
each word becomes a curse.

She makes herself very small
in her seat as a gang
of teenage boys invades the car.

They pummel each other
with fists and chests
up and down the aisle

just for fun. Or, just to prove
their vitality is their virility
to the rest of us.

She’s seen full-grown men
perform the chicken dance
with their jeans dropped to their ankles

to get her attention.
They didn’t need to bother.

Her focus on one of them
couldn’t be broken for years.

She’s got her eye on
figures who parade by after dark.

these prayers
made of pine
needles
typewriter
ribbon horror
film epilogues
flat ginger
ale blank
mass cards
a mess of
whispers
tucked inside
a stack of
questions

these prayers
made and furled
these prayers
answered and weighed
these prayers

I walk with two
surrealist Charlies
into a forest
that casts shadows
of ruined buildings
under delirious
moonlight

one holds a pen
the other a shovel
I sprinkle crumbling
viola petals
at their feet
and pluck stars
from the sky

to see their faces
when I return
to the city green

Yesterday’s rain
was an invitation.
Today’s slaps me
in the face.

Too tired
from sleeping
too long
to go outside.

Mood is
an unwieldy beast—
always volatile,
never endangered.

I let it
escape, uncollared,
through a hole
in the chainlink fence.

Prologue

This story arrives
on the back of a coyote
seen running through the woods
near where we used to swim.

This story contains
no words, only the texture
of fur and tracks on dirt
and debris

from howls
that got tangled up
in a pack
of whispers.

A picture book
unfolds before us:

This is no folktale,
no myth, no picaresque
anecdote, nothing but a rogue
silhouette cast in stone.

Then a muted crumbling
of crunchy architecture.

Epilogue

Her personal alarm
pierces the man’s pride.
A lone song dog
without a territory,

he opens his mouth.
The quiet rings
false across his lips.
A vegetarian for 35 years,

he would gag
on her promises
if she let him
get that close.

Tributary

named after a lake
named after a girl

strong coffee in a glass
vessel after beer tapped
from a wooden cask

cold rain at night
after a wintry mix all day

the beat of a drum
filtered through leaky
headphones after all that silence

on the other side
of a retaining wall

run / hide / fight
the slow dance track plays

no one’s dancing
who remembers how

someone please

let’s build
a skyway to the moon

the weather between
here and there

can tire wings
bend fins
fray tails

someone please

turn off
the piped-in song
cut the bell’s tongue

someone please

let the buskers inside
we have a long way to go

let them sing
of views and the hand
that opens the cage

someone please

A light lilts over
wet roads, the grass
barely covered.

Slow moments,
fast ones, some
carving a channel between.

She doesn’t know which
she wants to set
the rhythm of her day.

It’s not just hers.
Not really hers at all. Gratitude

comes in shades of blue,
or is it green to gold.
Soon, so soon, too soon,

in the dark,
she can’t tell.