Day 212 (When I Am Home)

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I am New England dirt,
the taste of beets out back.
I am not brownstone—
not urban by birth. I am

still in quarry depth,
the scent of cars rusting beneath.
I am not ocher—not red
iron ore impure. I am sipping

fresh water from a claw-foot tub
turned spring, overflowing
to Bone Lake at dusk
and warm. But I am not

the moon to be collected.
I am not forty jokes memorized—
not working a room,
timing accent and plot. I am

ready to mark this laughter
the colors of a flower bed
against brick. I am the line
drawn purple—blues and reds

of a road map
preparing to fold everything
I am
(except magnetic north) in place.

Weather Whispers

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Not gonna be about
death. Not gonna
be about addiction. Not

gonna be
about the river, ice, wind
chill, water main

breaks. If I say
it’s about the red
wheelbarrow, or a dare

to eat a peach, or
mermaids singer, or
heaven forbid moths

laughing—well, we’re all
thieves in here anyway.

Heavy Metal Detox

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These are not

tears. A wind
chill emotion erupts

without warning. Who
leaves their dog

outside a café
on a day like today?

Two-inch thick
ice will last

longer than many
relationships.

As I peel
on and off

layers of peace,
another January

gets sealed
shut. Another recipe

scrolls down
the side of a wall

outside a venue
that sells

no food. And these words
will not

be sung indoors.

Spider Taste Bud Dance Steps

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Begins with
no hidden driveways
for the unlicensed. Then no
skylights in skyways
to confuse this weather. And no
more nowhere
without a degree
of separation from
omnipresent becomes
another verb. But some parts
of the tongue
are just
flavor blind.

Five Months

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Half the Sunday
paper on Saturday.
I would leave the business

section folded, unread
for him. All that caution—
still he preferred

The Wall Street Journal. Grilled
salmon with his secret
marinade sauce

in the years
I ate fish. It always came down
to The Run or The Walk—

capital T, capital R, or
capital T, capital W.

The Asbury Park
boardwalk. Trails
in South Mountain Reservation.

The Delaware
and Raritan
Canal State Park.

The Mississippi
riverfront overlooking
Saint Anthony Falls.

The Kinsale
Old Head before
it became a golf course.

From those Kokomo
rural routes to
a nursing home hallway,

so many other roads, trails,
paths, passageways
to his life. If I could begin

today, how many days,
months, years would it take
to map it all? If I can recall

a path a day, I might
make a little bit of progress
the way he wished.

Discard Pile Thief

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“We quote each other only when we’re wrong.”
—Jay Farrar (Uncle Tupelo), from “High Water” (Anodyne)

A half dozen
roses tossed
onto a snow bank. A garment
bag with wheels
going in circles
on a carousel

of time. Three
sisters, one
mother, a wife, two
children under
four. One father—
recently dead. A box of notes

for a novel
scrapped without
a plot. A birthday
gift for a modern
novelist—long dead. A bowl
of yellow split

pea soup without
a spoon. Six
roses in the wrong

kind of water.
The dialogue
that preceded them.

All the quotation
marks she saved
just in case.

A Slow Rap

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Brews under
the stairs. Who are
the mixed-blood
majority? She is not
one but is
the other. Written
and whispered
in a quiet zone.

O, Brother, Where Art Thou?

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No one walks
this way

forever. No one waits
for the call

without some skin
crawling in

the dark. No one wishes
this on you—save

perhaps you. Save
yourself from

yourself. I would walk
that far to meet you

in the middle
where odysseys are

just stories we read
before switching off the light.

Wind Chill Civil Dawn

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Beautiful to watch
from a well-sealed
window. Nothing

gets taken
for granted. Feels like

a drop
in ambient thought.
The essential reveals

itself against a pale blue
cloudless sky. Another day

where hope just might burst
through burns awake
to break convection’s hold.