She chases balloons
so high

in the sky when
she should have bought

a brownstone row house by now.
She reaches across

an immense empty

metal bucket to touch
a movable wall when

her fingers go numb
for a brief stretch.

When dark ridges
evenly spaced

between thin bars,
darker still,

conceal a silent wreck.
A naggingly familiar

terrain appears when
she closes her eyes:

the sycamore forest
where everything began.

The urge to drop
everything

into the void
to hear the hollow

drum sound explode
across a cavernous room

grows when
she opens them.

When marbles were rolling
beneath a butcher block

table faster than any boulders
she could flick away,

knuckles down. The ones
she polished

so religiously, so lovingly
that summer

when anything
that might interfere

with the physics
of lust was on

high alert. When a 360°
view of Vermont hills

was never enough.

The momentum of another
tabula rasa season,

when it was still possible
to collect Connecticut rivers

and streams and quarries
into a canvas cinch pouch

for safe keeping,
would not recur for decades.

When she stops
wondering if the blood

alleys ever reached the bottom
to nestle among so many rusted

motorcycles and shopping carts
protecting faded dinosaur tracks.

“When he saw her expiration date,
he knew she was no good”

has always been the best
caption to accompany the tattoo

on her hip:
July 27, 1990.

When she left New York City,
he didn’t come looking for her.

When the handwriting twists
and drips and drags

and the view upside down
brings more than a blush

and ears burning. When
she closes her eyes

to bless the bats and
rights herself in time

to witness another solar ballet.
When they had front row seats

to an aurora borealis
decorating the Iceland sky.

And he almost kissed her again
after half

a lifetime swirled by
in greens and purples

and, no, a piece of the sun
did not break off.

With a name like Cathexis,
he knew she was doomed.

When an invisible being
in the woodwork watches her

move across the night
into a saturated morning,

his paralysis reaches
new heights.

When floods follow fires
and the flashing firmament

dances off the margins
of a biblical myth.

A gull flies overhead
as the ferry pushes through

the icy water, and, still, she can’t
let go.

And then the groundhog died.
No weather breeder,

neither calm
nor a forecaster

of future tempests.
Once upon a

time

was the same thing
as the storm

pounding the bay, or
wrecking your head. Rites of

passage. Temporal
differences in behavior

separate us. Your day
begins as the great horned owl’s

ends. Remember
when your nocturnal behavior

led to these scraps
of paper. Unrecognizable

handwriting in
an unidentifiable language

that curls | collides | crashes
before leaking

off the page.

It’s not a question
mark. It’s a pipe

you won’t light.
A bar we can’t erase.

You are so beyond
vaping. Know nothing

about navigating helicopters
through the fog.

We can’t drag
an atmospheric river

in search of survivors.
They say

it died while hibernating
in its den late last year.

(not created with ChatGPT)

You invite butterflies to check into
your bug hotel. You never know.

Everything’s in dispute these days.
Mystery boarders may burrow

in the hollows beneath the stairs.
You build over old mistakes.

The copper trimmed hipped
rooftop. The vertical cypress

siding. The slotted
front entrance. You believe

you have thought of everything
this time. A tall mounting stake rises

above the last words
you murmur at dawn.

The ladybug is a beetle
is not always a lady

the way those polka-dotted scarlet
domes open to expose

the real secret: escape wings
that unfold to four times

the size of the mere body. Sprung
free, let’s fly away abroad

before the warning
coloration flames flicker out.

Let’s sip tainted wine by the bottle,
a soft-spoken whisper drifts

through open windows
on the backs of afternoon

gusts. As the sun sets, mourning
cloaks settle into a lone pile

of logs stacked against an undisturbed,
lichen-encrusted stone wall—

without mortar. The only
protection a funeral

home moon garden needs.

As night blooms,
white-lined sphinx moths

come to mark the pale evening
primroses blessed.

It’s in your tree.
It’s in your house.
It’s in your dream

of a treehouse
your father built
for your sisters and you

in a tangle of Massachusetts pine.

Something about an uneven ladder,
an exposed nail, a tetanus shot
before you wake. Its blood

red nymph bodies come to molt
into your closed-eye hallucinations.
The international orange outline

of its black adult wings
warns you not to eat it.
It may not be a stink bug,

but it will stink
just the same if you bite
into its hardened shell.

Will taste worse
than any other bug
you’ve tried before.

Its wants are simple—sucking

on seeds like a whittler
on a porch, carving tiny
plump evening grosbeaks

perched precariously
on skinny branches
from flaming box elder wood.

Some days you wish
you could wrap yourself tightly
in an ash gray bark

to protect yourself
from the hungry AI poets
who creep around

the backyard seeking flat oval rocks
to sun themselves on. Swarms
of them start bonfires

in thickets of invasive species
after midnight as they drain
enough flasks of liquid

courage to plot their dawn invasion
through the nearest crack
in the stucco facade.

It’s in your book,

staining your thoughts
in glorious geometries.
Oh, bug, be true.

And she wears merlot
on her lips. It’s no slur
to say it out loud. Not a slip

of the tongue
down the throat.
A little too bright, too

hot for her aging face.
And the boundary between
mouth and oxbow lake has become

so blurred.

And there’s no vineyard
on the Vineyard anymore.
And the wine is

neither new
nor old. It plays both sides
of the social construct

when drunken corpses
pass out beneath bur oaks
on banks

of sleepy winding rivers
on humid summer afternoons
in upper valleys.

And a tongue in cheek
reviver will soon flow
into shakers from a steep

waterfall. And it could be
dancing green fairies
released from an absinthe bottle

cause her to hallucinate
her way into a prairie roof
raising before collapsing.

A stampede of pink
elephants making
a mess of the meadow. Or,

it could be the microdot
she swallows while sitting
on a window ledge

on the fourth floor
of a coed dorm
on a perfect early September

day last century (years
before Teenage Fanclub recorded
“It’s All in My Mind”).

Beware those mornings most

this millennium. Or,
it could be she is not breathless
in the presence

of such an evocative mist,
but merely choking on smog
that stagnant air won’t release

for weeks. Or, it doesn’t matter
at all—the natural color
of her lips, more matte dusty rose

than polished ruby, is enough.

The egg that won’t
hatch | the bubble
that won’t rise | the door
that won’t burst
open | the vacuum
that won’t stop
whirring breathlessly | the cement
mixer that won’t stir
or disturb the cliff | the escape
room that won’t illuminate
a clue | the camera that won’t
darken your threshold | the night
that won’t end | the star
that won’t be
judged | the cavity
that won’t absorb
the sound
of your thoughts | the cavern
that won’t collapse
into thousands of tiny flaming
punked-out grottoes | the tunnel
that won’t explode under
pressure | the only
catacomb that won’t
adapt | the ossuary that won’t preserve
your movements | the carrel
that won’t hurt
your writing hand
even if it’s
the left one | the flask
that won’t drip
or contain another morning
that breaks too early | the heart
that won’t swoon | the tent
that won’t sway too much
or obstruct our view
of the northern lights | the vessel
that won’t sink
under the weight
of a breath
of fresh air or other
ruin residue | and the vestibule
that will protect
our wishes
including that everyone
slips painlessly away
in their sleep
when it’s time—
no exceptions

The poems you wrote, shared, then hid
as self-destructing ephemera.

Your words are sheets of paper
that dissolve in water

in less than 30 seconds. A hesitant return
to the office turns cautiously joyous.

Faces you have not seen in two years
bring tears to dampen your own.

A college friend is sick.

You island hop across the Northeast,
from Manhattan to Governor’s Island

to Roosevelt Island
to a collection of them in Rhode Island

passing by Uncatena and Nonamesset
on the way to Martha’s Vineyard.

Old friends everywhere you pause.
Ferries and rookeries and egrets

and catamaran sails at sunset.
Dodging pond sandbars

in a motorboat
on the way to a barrier beach.

You meet your oldest sister’s
favorite local photographer,

ship a photo of your childhood
beach to her.

Gichi-gami and its 191-year
retention time. You swear you can hear

giraffes hum beneath
the Aerieal Lift Bridge in Duluth

each time you cross. You encounter
your father’s handwriting

preserved in a journal he kept
for a poetry class in college.

10 years gone now.
You are finally brave enough

to open the notebook.
“Poetry is life!”

his younger self exclaims.
Another Great Lake

comes into view
as fall draws you out.

You walk along
an old fishing pier

with your other sister.
Wedding plans begin

to take shape for her daughter
as your younger niece

and her sweet brother
are beginning to happen.

You see your mother.
There’s never enough time.

Your friend is dying.

You share nature center trails
and a familiar duck pond

with more dear friends.
A 300-year-old bur oak

in Loring Park splits open
under the stress of age,

rot, drought the final straw.
There are things you find

in the sculpture garden,
give away without telling a soul.

And there were rabbits
everywhere in the rain.

Your friend dies.

You dream of seeing him alive
one last time

in an amusement park
overlooking Lake Erie.

The Golden Gate Bridge.
A memorial service. A reunion

for those of us who remain
to tell the stories—details

a little fuzzy, a little disputed,
it doesn’t matter.

A raven flies overhead
as the fog clears.

Microclimates at work.
Are you okay? Are you okay?

Voices and laughter as singular
as fingerprints.

The first snowfall
before winter is made official

is Minnesota’s signature move.
And then a second, and then

the seasons change.
We drove almost all the way

up the mountain
to see through the mist.