you loosen the binding straps and lay out your heart, exposed to bleed in the bedtime air. let each scar be a syllable. let each wound be a word — in exchange for a hurt, a victorious phrase swaddled by the page while the pain becomes ink dry, and a bit farther away until sob …
Dawn glistened through frost Through a morning window Through a hazy sun, leaning Against the snow on the small mountains. Without paint, I painted By opening my eyes. We drank juice instead of coffee Ate pancakes and strawberries Put our boots on Walked Until the cabin disappeared from the canvas. The wind shifted and took …
As we are: Quixote would stand Surveying the span and depth of the drop. Pick up a stone, throw it nowhere near The other side reaching. Check for bridges and fallen trees, none. A good tail wind to aid a heroic leap, none. A rope, and a team of horses That could pull his side …
Expect my sun to rise with yours My trees to shade My leaves to fade My water quench the spell Expect the grass to live as long Expect the birds to court each song Expect my sun to glow like yours But I’ve a moon to tend, as well.
Even when the fast wind toppled the old and looming tree outside, the one I used as shelter from the days of different sunlights, I noticed the strong double doors of the barn, where I kept the machinery, standing firmly closed–they were held with bolted hinges and metal straps that kept the splinters from happening. …
eleven o’clock at night and it’s time to move the car off the street ’cause tomorrow’s sweeping day when the big truck comes to vacuum along the sidewalk followed by a parking control chase vehicle that gives tickets to guys like me who forget the rules twenty-eight dollar citations written up by uniformed women who …
You were a phone number on a folded piece of napkin wedged inside the bottom of my purse where the matchbooks and chewing gum wrappers fell with all the change and lint and dried, uncapped pens And I watched you float down and almost miss your mark when I emptied the bag above the trash …
The fish swam without making sounds in the aquarium in our bedroom. It was ten-thirty, and you’d unplugged the motor that pumped air for the fish and helped clean the water for the fish, because all that humming, if left on, would keep me awake. And every night this was the ritual. And every night …
Come, Because there’s breath in me Come, I will sing for you, you don’t have to answer…
I realize that I am not the man I should have been… My nights are scattered darkness becoming crows descending in light to land on wheat fields where they become golden, where rivers of orange run between green, flying shores and I can swim along on unsure footing and still be accepted into your heart.
if i am sober wealthy straight clean beautiful happy betrothed unmolested lucky how will i convince you that we are not enemies?