Poetry

Prelude to a Season and

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Your cold retreat just days
before becoming
officially on 

is a cruel dance
on last night’s sighs
into a buoyant civil 

dusk. You turn
me on only to turn
your back to my naked 

fantasies of an us—two
turtles on a broken branch
over the rising river. 

It crests in the valley
at the convergence 

of the small into
the mighty. Floods 

a grain terminal
in new repurpose, drowns
an island for now, distracts 

me from your absence.
This pulled-up leather
collar collides 

with that last image
I’ve been working
into you.

The Line

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Turns out musicians
are mortals—shouldn’t be
a surprise. All those young
martyrs. But still it is. 

You’re the latest
demonstrator.
You left behind
one of the best. And because 

I, too, am
mortal and
a thief, I can’t resist: 

“I can’t get a license
to drive in my car. But
I don’t really need it,
if I’m a big star.” 

Step outside
the city
on a clear night. 

Note:  Stolen lyric from “O My Soul,” by Alex Chilton, from the album Radio City.

Before the Cruel One

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Who waits
for the river
to rise rises 

above reds
to reach clay
tinted sky. Who 

runs from dry
spells into March
gusts and shifted 

light shifts
with each new
calibration.  

This window
then that becomes

highlights for whomever
remains.

1963

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He was minus three
when those songs from heaven
were playing on
AM radio. I was zero. 

When he was zero, I was
in Northern Illinois
learning how
to say three instead 

of free.
I would never be
so much so again. No multiples
will return me 

to that coincidence—one
he’ll never know.

Graffiti Blues

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Dark lipstick stains
on the rim 

of a coffee mug, a juice
glass, cigarette 

filter, napkin, so far
from the neighborhood 

of your lips—they can’t be tagged.

Duplicate Triplicate

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Equivocation—poetry
in strong,
skilled hands, mud
in most. Who am I 

to seek twins
standing up to one another
in this historic park?

Who do you think 

you are to judge
my choice of wrapping
through another stretch
of drizzle? Who 

do you think I am
when you gaze this way
that way? Who 

do I think you are
when I forget 

what I might say
to you under its grip?
I’m thinking 

fraternal ones
and three grown
sisters, one
weirder than the next.

Clutching Tags

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Aphasia is anonymous
in its demand
that poems be 

written
without words.
I’m not ready to give 

mine up. The wave
of an ampersand 

ropes them in
just in time.

Tags Along

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Methodist metronome
middle age middle C
mill Minneapolis
Minnesota Minnesota 

River minor
deity Mississippi 

headwaters Mississippi
river monk
monosyllables moon
moon cup moonless mosaic 

tile mother
moths motion mount 

mountain mountains
mouth muddy water
multimodal murmur
trestle muse muses 

nagahyde naked
apes New England New 

Haven New Jersey New
Jersey Shore New
Jersey Transit New
Orleans new soul new 

wine New York New York City New
York fire truck New
York subway Newark
Airport newborn 

Nick Drake 

Nicollet Mall Farmer’s
Market night night
club North Atlantic North
Clark Street northern 

Minnesota nostalgia
nudes nymphs 

obsession.

Staged and Charged Up (Day 2,669)

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No photos ever of me
in Brooklyn. Some in Queens—
an Astoria fourplex with unfinished 

hardwood floors. Manhattan all over beginning
inside the helm of the Flat Iron.
The Bronx north of 232nd Street indoors 

and out. Even one on Staten Island before
dashing across the Verrazano Narrows 

Bridge. Where did they go? I know
they were taken
by the tiny broken locks 

in my soul.
But I can’t end
on that—I’ll be the one 

stealing, not having earned
the right to mention it—
the soul that is. 

Fragile Spring: A Ghazal

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On quiet nights, fear makes me fragile.
Every damn sneer makes me fragile. 

I just might break beneath my own breath
because what I hear makes me fragile. 

Last year’s leaves rattle along the branch.
What’s no longer here makes me fragile. 

Brief rains promise to reveal our aches.
The sky becoming clear makes me fragile. 

Ice remains stubborn on the park’s pond.
Touching what is near makes me fragile. 

Some animals won’t make it to spring.
Losing what is dear makes me fragile.