Poetry

If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train

I remember when my body
was a friend,

when sleep like a good dog
came when summoned.

Well, here we are again, old friend, Ancient of Days,

Eyeball to eyeball. 

To save her, they had to cut her brain in two,
Had to sever nerves, strip one lobe almost bare—
It left her blind.

My neighbors’ dog, shut out of their house
a quarter mile uphill from us, has barked
all night, protesting. 

There are some things that can’t be conveyed—
description, for instance,
The sundown light on that dog hair lodge pole pine
and the dead branches of spruce trees.

the absent have left the window open:
the last soldier, stricken,
his moustache gently covered over, has left the bed
undone[…]

I watched
a junco
climb a spruce
as if upon
a spiral stair […]

Like rivers, my thoughts flow south,
for no particular reason.
Must be the full moon
That floods the sky, and makes the night wakeful
and full of remorse.

Nothing to hosanna,
you will be buried

Cold. Only the living
go on living.