cops in darkness
drive and smile
at other cops
*
if a tree falls
in the forest…
fireflies
*
sunflowers…
all the faces
born to travel
*
night cops in cars
wait for darkness
to well up
*
complaining about
carbon footprints he swats
a bee with newspaper
*
slow down your walk
until it’s lovemaking
air your partner
*
watching waves
on the beach
in a cup
*
morning fog
the old zinc bucket
behind everything
*
spring rain
the graffiti of dead boys
looks new again
*
the funeral
only the dead man
knows everyone
*
night beach
ancient female
thunder
*
all night
dark waves crash saying
she she she
*
leaving the gym
still dark
inside my body
*
even your eyelids
taste her
crashing morning waves
*
3 a.m. gym
a few satyrs
frown at each other
*
August street
children and flies
bug a dead cat
*
Christmas snow
cats glower
at carolers
*
naked cop
without his gun
feels naked
*
making the best
of a bad century
Mae West
*
everyone sees
the rain fall but no one
sees it rise
*
no longer calling
the last crickets
listen
*
all the past days–
are they tight sardines
or gone clouds
*
sardine tin–
death makes
strange bedfellows
*
old man
staring at a tin of sardines
remembers an orgy
*
long drive home
headlights narrow
his feeling
*
an apple
so perfect
my hunger fades
*
dark river
chuckles on stone steps
all night long
*
old men piss
slow at racetrack urinals
dreaming of speed
*
night horsetrack
the odds of everything
hide in a fog
*
young soldiers dead…
on a battlefield crows jingle
their good luck charms
*
rehab clinic
at dawn the erections
dream of home
*
too tired to explain
he gets another tattoo
instead
*
in the bar
he lets his tattoos
do all the work
*
bar’s alpha
even his arm cast
collects phone numbers
*
breeze in night’s screen door:
he watches dark willows
change clothes like women
*
after the crash
his shoes stayed on the back porch
all winter
*
small wings
in the candle wax
summer night
*
summer night
the kitchen’s cricket
getting closer
*
kitchen-trapped cricket
pretends not to care
he’s dateless
*
some dates
just end badly a cricket
in a kitchen
*
be gentle
with our kitchen’s cricket
the dateless wonder
*
summer crickets
under the stars
dateless wonders
*
night fishing
a cigarette glows
twice
*
the best part
of being a cricket
you’re never lost
*
horny crickets
all night tell
absolutely anyone
*
Sunday dawn
crickets who struck out
finally shut up
*
he sprays his mom’s
favorite perfume on her ashes
before guests
*
my dead mother
atomizing
in my memory
*
summer hookup
she makes love to his tattoos
not him
*
watching sparrows
not knowing
what i am
*
a tugboat
far below this hill
slowly pulls my mind
*
freezing night
a far dog barks
at lowness
*
a loon’s cry…
dead friends
listen through me
*
deep ocean
dreamless sharks
made of time
*
no one left
she talks
to the house
*
morning fog
freshens the graveyard
behind town
*
deer in the yard
a ninety-year-old
raps on the glass
*
a psych textbook
titled YOUR PROJECTIONS
ABOUT THE MOON
*
she comes home
from the library
younger with grass stains
*
a man jumps
from a bridge some birds
briefly join him
*
we talk
behind its back
the childless apple
*
dawn branches
a bunch of birds call bullshit
on night
*
night auction
more chairs
than his funeral
*
flea market
checking each link
in a stranger’s necklace
*
balloons trapped
in a hospital room
barely breathing
*
husband to husband–
all the picture frames
she gives away
*
rain on the roof
a story fainter
every year
*
polite smiles
people give milk glass
as they pass
*
deep under
the alphabet
the animals
*
the only one
children love in a graveyard
the snowman
*
we pass the cemetery
and think
no porch light
*
August cicadas
our ice cream
shedding its skin
*
after feeding pigeons
she feeds the coworkers
on Ambien
*
separate beds
separate checkbooks
same young lover
*
swimming in
the dead neighbor’s pool
her moonlight’s nicer
*
breaking up
still, they smile that their bed
has a limp
*
autumn sunlight
even the leaves know
they’re toast
*
in your sleep
you talk to years
without their skin
*
not a total loss:
Gettysburg
National Park
*
your death too
is the leaves
changing color
*
hating the world so
while he’s held in warm arms,
her lover the chihuahua
*
such angelic carving
a big bed goes traveling
divorce by divorce
*
ginkgo leaves
things won’t say
how old they are
*
after a week
of constant snow
expect mice
*
some words can squeeze
through holes much smaller
than themselves
*
the things
mice must think about holes
squeezing through!
*
two floors down
a murder
sounds like a dance
*
boy’s first time
and she’s pregnant…
deer taste moonlight
*
a touch
on the shoulder a leaf
in the graveyard
*
it’s raining outside
leaking inside
we’re making love
*
sniffing his shirt
left here years ago
a Golden Fleece is born
*
a swampy new love
she doesn’t check her mailbox
for days
*
animal eyes
in the zoo thinking man
this is a long visit
*
a breakup:
don’t click, call or visit
beloved emptiness
*
her mother’s hand
on the old man’s hand
that painted a rice grain
*
on his grave
we leave a geranium
armpit stank he loved
*
quiet house
cicadas louder
than the t.v. news
*
waking up
worried about bussing
my dream’s plates
*
abandoned orchard
deer thank no one
for cool moonlight
*
the sunflowers
nothing here
is old
*
Arles tour bus
sunflowers on the side
lost faces in windows
*
a small girl
is in love with sunflowers
half her age
*
brushing it off
an aroused firefly
lighting her breast
*
Arles
blue sky
begins to hiss
*
night sky
stars heat up
the sky boils
*
jar of fireflies
on a windowsill Vincent paints
Starry Night
*
U.S. puzzle toy
some wooden states
keep falling out
*
waking to no name
the cream rises
over the milk
*
fireflies
in a paper cup
still warm
*
after a late walk
your foliage
next to mine
*
frog’s splash
then endless commentary
of toads
*
how young they seem–
dust motes turning
in sunbeams
*
streetlight in fog
a bat passes by
dreaming hello
