The sun has since set, the stars have come out to look down, and the darkness of the sky
swallows me. I can see the moon shining outside my kitchen window, bathing the world in blue.
I’m sitting at the table, picking and ripping my skin off my fingers. They’re bleeding. I look at
the fruit bowl, inside it sits a single rotten gala apple. The red and yellow blended skin has faded
to grey and brown, and spots of black cover it. The bruises have turned into caverns, and I can
see the structure of the compromised apple, sunken in. Fruit flies scatter around it, and their
buzzing fades in and out of my ears as they fly around. I smash one onto the table. I wipe off its
guts on my ripped and stained painter’s jeans.

When I finally come up for air,
I listen to my favorite podcast through a single earbud
as I push the stroller.
I allow caffeine back into my life.
I blow dry my hair.
I skip the morning pump session.
I stop waiting for slivers of freedom to present themselves,
and instead, purposefully carve them out.

There’s a cavern where she stood;
A bombed out crater, irradiated.
If I enter that circumference, I know
I’ll choke on grief, like some personal Chernobyl.
Suffocate on memories as translucent as dead skin,
Small things—small moments—that fill up the lungs,
Cut them up,
Like glass.

it’s beautiful
the way your hands work
you roll a bouquet-
stemmed paper flowers
a jazz measure
between your card and mirror
‘painter’s fingers’
remembered by old lovers

“Come sit down.”
Another interrogation,
at the kitchen table.

Out my window, above the loblollies,
clouds mask the morning,
threatening snow and ice.
The glass needs a good cleaning,
coated by the nose-smudged breath
of Clover—our neighbor’s dog,
whose sleek spotted coat shines warm
against winter, her wagging tail
an exclamation of hunger and habit.

Every great city and forgotten hamlet have one.
A shrine to conviviality, fashioned for friendships
both old and new. A sanctuary to ward off the chill
of wind and worry. A haven for the warmth of friendly
conversation and laughter.

Spring returns,
Reclaims the land,
Stirs the fish and lets them run,
Pins the apples to the trees,
Liberates the frozen stream.

Sitting waiting
as the grim crepuscule
of today approaches.
With dozens of reasons
to suffer in the course
of a lifetime.

All around me, as well as within—
watching, guiding, and whispering.

From their blood and bones
I have risen from,
more powerful than any phoenix
rising from its ashes.

the feeling of lostness
two or three streets from home

the sweetness of doing
nothing all Sunday

Shadow of solitude
A speck on this planet
Unknowingly tries to be an extrovert
Conquering her introversion
Yet she loses herself along the way.

I first saw Ed

hanging at Nicollet Isle
on his wedding day, oven-hot.
The hippie couple hit the wall,
turned middle class,
and were looking good.

I once was the perfect example of how easily
into peer pressure you can be sucked into,
which led to that first drink, which led to many more,
first from the glass and then the whole bottle.
Which led to that first high,

in between,
i step onto our back porch, concrete slab piled high with tired coffee tables and
paint-spotted mugs. the robin sitting on the telephone wire begins to sing.
and at first i cannot place it. and i am filled with a desperate longing, a sort of
memory-cascade, and i recognize the sparrow’s lilting as Frank X Gaspar’s poem Nausicaä.

up the path
I have time to smell the sap
of the pine trees, to try
to decipher the bird trills
above me, to linger by the pond
watching the turtles
engage in Tantric sex
on the high end of the log.

Five years have passed and now it is the year 5769
I wrap the ghost of my mother into an Origami swan
-white as pond lilies in July

I fold her neatly again like a fetal embryo & stuff her into
my left shirt pocket – along with six months of losing
lottery tickets

Looking at My Reflection

Looking at my reflection,

I have to frown—

I’ve clearly gone and

Let you down.

You mustn’t know, but when you speak,
Your lips turn bloom, and you release
From murmured wells between your teeth
A cloud of dandelion seeds—
Invisible to all but me.

As the autumn leaves fall,

I reminisce on us.

I forgive myself

for how I lowered myself

for you — my false idol.