Poetry

We watched a movie about
an orchestral conductor, a powerful 
woman who groomed young musicians. 
I didn’t understand the ending. 
Driving to the beach, it began to rain. 

In the end 
the world is empty 
enough to move in 
—to learn how best to hold a lantern 
drunk in the forestdark— 
 

Between Los Angeles and Oakland, 
there was snow on the grass-covered mountains,
which made a strange pattern, like brushstrokes
on paper.

Tired of silence, tired of rock, tired of orchestration,
let me tune us in this evening to FM 91.1, The Point: 
“All y’all’s favorite home for the candid sounds 
of people sleeping.” 

your hand swells my neck, pretty, you say
i am, no matter how decimal-small. 
my eyelash flutters across your shoulder.
gravity. you land on my chest skin—

Pink Floyd’s Animals
drones through a thin
dreamless sleep I keep

each day you wake wishing that what is, is not, and that’s no way to live.

the owl refuses to dispense any wisdom
but has a few questions of its own:

the ogre of gratitude dangling like a chandelier from the rearview mirror asks if
you know how lucky you are, if you’ve meditated on that yet, if your heart

My therapist says a boy with a secret
is easy to control. I wonder how
Steve learned mine, if I told him