I pick blue hydrangeas
from my yard. Don’t know
what to do with them.

“The cheek of her wearing black. A large bosom, thin legs like a heron, I’d forgotten those. Hair too silver-blonde for the age of her face. Jack must have sunk into her like a cloud. Or a sofa whose springs have gone.”

“In the arid dunes of the Gobi desert, I burrow under the surface to wait out the heat of the midday sun.”

“On the day in question, I wake up feeling incredibly calm. It has rained all night – I can practically hear the water seeping into the garden.”

“A thump nudged James into consciousness.”

“Oscar picked the castle for our last night of a 10-day trip to Ireland. We’d worn on each other.”

An erasure.

“in air thick with rain’s threat, i pull
words up like sick on string.”

“The night is an old woman.”

“sing loud and long, sing
for those who can’t, sing”

this is where we

misremember & forget-

me not

“when I say,

death wafts in this house,

I do not like the way it dwells -”

“You secure a research grant, you fly to Newfoundland and invite me to fly there too, join you at the airport. You say that you’ve missed me, that we should get together again, do some catching up, see what happens.”

“Jon and Cinderella
walk up the hill slowly,
tired”

“I was no good when you were a child
Loving you wholly, but feeling too much
All I had was love back then, not sanity or time”

“She will be doing the batok because today, her mood dictated she will”

“Consider this sea of movement, the multitude in waves.”

“When I cup my hands under the faucet, the water finds the cracks between my fingers and slowly pushes through. No matter how tightly I squeeze my fingers together, the water seeps, dripping down the drain.”

“Unhurried in a realm below the acorn woodpeckers
hoarding their harvest I try not to think”

“On a screen-porch in Baton Rouge, real low to the ground
my mother’s hands rattle the old metal peeler birthing naked potatoes”