The forest spins with us
on a planet. We are both
dizzy for water.

Not everybody is everybody’s
cup of tea. Forests can be needy
until it's too much and no one cares.

We pat the bark and feel closer.

Turtles stretch themselves

Far outside their ken.

You see them watching you

watching them, their shells

several little hands wide.

Animal fingerprints are everywhere.

Imagine your torso set free.

The sky and its usual cycles.

Bruised days opened, then released.

Under sky rain makes itself
into more rain. Every minute more dark seeds.

Rain can be itself and
leave us dry. Our bodies move closer

but we forget how. My body
is a floating frame I can’t control.

Under a rug our history accumulates.

Two of us as one together alone.
The morning is cold.

Red and pink blooms on bushes
shiver and salamanders mysteriously disappear.

Something
hidden underground that emerges too soon.

It takes several errors to kill it.

I look at my boss and his sad eyes and I see love in there.
Not an easy love. A dark Scandinavian love that cries
real tears nothing to do with me. We are kindred,
drinking water chilled from a cooler. We stand
like two tall birds, weary yet kind in a pale landscape.

I wear purple from Goodwill. Purple, a regal color.
I make eye contact with no one.

I go home and reign over my shredder
an insatiable box that feeds on my black words.

Sometimes a person can wear purple and speak quietly.
Sometimes a bird can just fly away. Also love can die soon
without ever knowing what it knows is so little.

The pigeons on my windowsill are courting.
They dance in circles. Their circles grow bigger.

They move so fast.

I am cowed. My body is a bag. I want the clouds and pigeons
under my thumb.

I am a drunken
suitor so needy and suitable. The moaning

unhinges my human dreams inside my small bird
body. I know how shaky a landscape can be.

How ground
can slip away and clouds follow.

1. The Adam's Needle
2. The Babbling Thrush
3. The Calgary Stampede
4. The Dag Boy
5. The Eared Owl
6. The Fabian Principles
7. The Gadsbobs
8. The Ha Ha Ha!
9. The (Iceland) Pony
10. The Jaborandi
11. The Kai
12. The Lack-Wi
13. The Macaroon
14. The N.A.C.A.
15. The Oak of Jerusalem or Paradise
16. The Pa'anga
17. The Quai d'Orsay
18. The Radon Seed
19. The Sac-Winged Bat
20. The T Account
21. The U-bahn
22. The Vinyl Score
23. The Wadcutter
24. The Xystus
25. The Ya'hoodom
26. The Zap Gun