Consider the cleverness of the Cooper’s hawk who glides disguised the upslope of the roof, crests the ridge, and dives on pigeons perched at the feeder hanging from the eave next door: the crash and sway, the spilling of seeds, the prey pinned against the box, the futile flap of wings as talons sink in,
____Body clenched for months ____with mittens we try to clutch ____the transparent word. ____Humidity wraps round us ____hot towels obscuring the eye ____our achievement a few drips. My inspiration lies as flat as that new rolled field, not a sprig, a twig sneaking up. My body a sack of bones with no dance to it
Don’t you understand? You could be her grandfather. Falcon stooping prey. Fresh-picked berry, crushed. Fragrant blossom cast aside. Hummingbird wing, cut. Cloak yourself in shame. No excuses. Douse the fire, stir the embers cold. Lust exposed to light: your name a scrap of paper, shredded. Confetti. Tattered coat, flapping. Your days of empire over. Girls
At first, I thought a brown dress glove on the floor of the parking garage, its seams raised like tendon lines stiffening the back of my hand. A life exhaled was folded flat, composed like rain-dried leather. The BMW was in my space again. I saw my windshield note was gone. I did not despair;
Her eyes and the lake are his memories, cobalt images of clarity and purity, running deep. It was in this cove where the black spotted loon dove head first into the heart of blue, attracting the tender pulse of her affection inciting her to follow the creature into the watery sweep tangled with milfoil that
Early morning, snow teases the outstretched branches of birch with help from the wind. It is cold, but inside the stove’s warmth cradles the recliner in the lamplight where he reads poems. His fingers, thick and calloused, flip pages enthusiastically. He notices the shape of his nails, much like his father’s, no moons rising. And
This is grand prize for third date. Slowly, I enter relishing the warmth as it permeates. My weight settles: a sinking ship completing its watery descent. Face to face she is deep in thought tells me ancient Egyptian women inserted crocodile dung into their vaginal canals in order to prevent pregnancy and somewhere between the
The village social, New Year’s Eve, and he’s back from Cardiff, back in the new routine, the old routine he’s hankered for. At ten to twelve, the Okey-Cokey. You put your left leg in, your left leg out, and there she is (hey, they’re thirty now) across the circle, receding, receding, plunging towards him, now
This spoon all night on tiptoe listening for the careless splash that will never make it back –the cup half hazelnut, black, half filled so its prey can be tracked in the dark the way one mouth finds another feeds on the voice that can’t escape –hour after hour being eaten by the silence longing
Where people get, no owls stay, a quibbling I picked with night, when further down the road the new guy hauled in lights, a trailer, bull-dozed his land, bought pit bulls, started raising rabbits. No one’s here but me. Still, he posted signs. What did he expect? By definition, I couldn’t ask. I gave up
