In a dream,
my favorite lost dress returns.
Wrinkled and dusty,
it had fallen

to the bottom of the walk-in
closet. Those edges
won’t curl
in the dark. A crawl space

becomes a secret passageway
between your sisters’
bedrooms. No one should leave us
alone back there.

First kiss, first trip
to New York City,
the bicentennial year
winds down.

Every bathroom doubles
as a severe weather shelter.
Even the brightest
aureole fades

to nothing
on foggy December mornings.

A clay horse
head explodes
inside a kiln
on the other side of the lake.

To unclutter the sky
at the tail end
of another shoulder season
is to mean everything

you say, even the words
that get trapped between your teeth.

Please don’t let this view
deep into another northern night
be the final whitecap
that crashes

before it reaches the jetty. Useless
foam that cannot salvage our drowning

hearts. Our fingers will never touch
memory’s true mud. Will never work
rooms like worry stones
under the hot light.

That thing you make
will be a poem some day.
I wish I could burn a bridge
just for a little while.

Nothing would collapse.
The sun would rise again.
You would give yourself over
to laughter and another cup

of black coffee
in an empty tavern.

I speak to horizontal,
then diagonal,
finally vertical
transportation experts.

They reveal nothing
about the journey
into the center
of a warm shell

where geothermal heat kicks in
just as the hidden people
from that dream I can’t shake
whisper coded messages

about what might become
of all this raw space.

And I confess to longing
for that cold afternoon in 1976
when you buy the Farrah Fawcett poster
from a 34th Street sidewalk vendor,

as I stand next to you
trying to memorize the motion
of our first subway ride
to tide me over till I return.

Blue can bleed
in so many directions,
she loses the map
inside folds in the sky.

As magnetic north shifts,
geese and turtles
and planes
scramble to find their way.

Who will remember
true signatures and gutters,
head bands
and dog-ears?

Who will teach
the anatomy of the book
when our planet’s
magnetic field flips?

Part of the last
untattooed generation,
she whispers an ode
to her largest organ—Earth’s too.

living so close
to the Mississippi River
she knows true north

lets lines of scrutiny
resurface along her forehead
under three new moons

and five recycled stars
the same night
robots begin to pace outside

a motion sickness
sea monster pokes its head
above gray before it turns green waves

at the most awkward moment
loses its way
more serpent than yeti

even as the palm of her own left hand
makes her nauseous
she won’t stop moving

will not amputate
will not break her own spine
before the library whisperer’s feet

everything hinges
on these shoulder blades
and those black birds

taking flight
through the propped-open
door to the lab

like a teenager
she fails to fully recover
from the edges of a Friday the 13th

dreams in surrealist blue
and appalling white

adjectives with their resting
bitch faces
and snide comments

about size and texture
lay flat on a table
beneath a ladder

aching to be
magazines she would read

in her sleep
if the light were better

“O swallow, calligraphy,
clockhand minus minutes,
early ornithogothic,
heaven’s cross-eyed glance,”
—Wisława Szymborska, “Commemoration”

Here, where buttresses truly fly
or merely the early bird gets
the carcass of a clandestine sea monster
before others wake.

There, where I am lagoon swill
that seeks a culvert
into the bay. Tidal flushing,
I’m more brackish than salty comeback.

Wherever inverted umbrellas
floating overhead
bounce the day’s first light,
the lovers swim ahead to have a look.

words trapped beneath layers of plaster
leave a residue of marble dust whispers

the silence
is an ancient silence
of trees with open wounds

resin bandages not yet positioned
or wrapped tightly

libations spilled
so long ago
the stains have faded

into ghosts of rappers
and saints splayed and vulnerable

the haunt walks out
the back door
free to roam

she wanders along an empty street
till a manhole entices her

she needs a permit to enter
this confined space
they need a permit to find her tucked inside

working letters
into worry stones

she would be a sea glass beachcomber
Baltic amber harvester
if she could stop biting her tongue

spend it immediately
better yet
find a lighter or a match
set it on fire
try to get lost
like that lonely long distance runner Smith
hum while you rub the ashes
into the leg of your jeans
strum your guitar
while the scent
of scorched dead
presidents lingers
in the air

with breathing
when FOMO trickles down
to Grandma

when sadness over seeing another dead mouse
on the running path
gets replaced with relief

it’s not a gigantic snapping turtle
with its guts seeping out
shell intact

when everyone
is recovering
from something

and pantries
have stepped out
of their closeted pasts

no more
hidden loaves
or cans stacked too high

when the power goes out
and whispers get recorded
then erased then retrieved

from a generator
1,000 miles inland
taking the scenic route

and the mermaid cover
no longer
makes sense

and the temperature plummets
as Saturday afternoon
gains momentum

the promise
of vicious river otters
swimming up north remains likely

I search for intimacy
on a footbridge
that’s been mute
for too many pink nights

then the tunnel
stares me down

I want to ratchet up
a conversation
without echoes
with only the left ear

participating
what’s really going on

with those brain damaged
Americans in Havana’s hotels
the answer sounds so jade
when you say it

I can’t even pronounce
the color of your sonic terror

the one you left to rot
in a backpack overnight
it gets so sticky
with morning inside

he catches a catfish
the size of a 9-year-old
boy or girl

a river
overflows
while a sea halfway

across the world
dries up

runners risk death
from hyponatremia
more than dehydration

it won’t kill you
to let a pink flame emerge
in the western sky

without reaching for
your iPhone to capture it
live or still

a little thirst
doesn’t mean

you will subvert the cure
and have to start counting
all over again