The Light Changes Just Like That

A background without stars, without kinescope,

Without trappings, like a parade with lots of confetti

Parachuting into an argument that blows up

Into what we really hate about each other.

With my good hand I trail off a solitary letter.

It’s nothing phonetically, not even a whole bicycle.

Just a monsoon of leaflets I asthmatically perfected

Over a cup of grapes.

I write, “Go far away and be beautiful.”

So something beautiful will be far away.

A Wave

Nylon thoughts firmly prosper

no words fettle for answers

over the sea in some waded shadow

everything jagged, shadowed, leaded

one remarks like a timid first lover

confused, a memory at its corners

like many colored snow falls

your tongue between the gulf

of reflection and suffering

the quality of a country

called the land of petals

not the vain weather

nor that the compost queen

called to the beautiful preordained

impassible ruffian

"Thou hast managed

a wave."

Lines Written in Snow

You begin beginning

flowers and mountains

land, lakes, and streams

shoulders shrugging

off the loss of understanding

I punctuate the coming

just in case

the details that one may pick up

sounds like kissing wax paper

Wheels perfectly imitating,

even the sun the light house reflections

The singer singing the words

You begin beginning.

Little Photo

All life is like this afternoon

on your young sandy face

the weight of the stars

the body tasting like snow

the slipcover of communication

fleeting through the geography

of twilight paintings

firecracker mysteries

calm hurricane

sandwiches

and the intricacies of the days

before you knew they

even existed.

I know more wrote than read that book which is the self I am

When I had my vision

like the dark structures

of communication

turning somewhat lucid

I thought these

borrowed breaths

could picnic

for a century

and that distance

could allow the windmills

to stall and dry

into an afternoon's landscape.

And my dear child

will you ever know

how I saw the great

ohio ember

the rain move

like a hand with its palms

raised

the admission of the strange

the fuzz

that one sees

looking across the impermanent shore.

This is the mystery

that I am doing to myself.

And sometimes we hear

the tree run, the water erode

the stone grow

Leaving Home

Some of
us,

remember leaving

home in the morning,

exploring

the bayous,
fishing with bread,

catching hermit crabs

catching a fly

to put into

venus-flytraps

growing wild

in the meadow

eating sour weed.