Poems

Last night the Hunter’s
Moon came looking for you.
She lit a wedding parade, boys
searching the street for a fix. Confused
by your death, your loved ones try 
to marry each other. Are we only
bone, skin and urge?
I miss you more than ever.
We are flaying our way into 
fall, breeding war horses 
on the borders of sentences.
Your hawks migrate cliffs on the yawn 
of canyon winds. Glossed with leaf 
and moon, your rafted rivers, golden.

From We Are Meant To Carry Water

Under traffic, a sparrow clings lightly to blue tissue,
scooped for its nest in the poplar’s bent, smooth body.

Wind pulses at the door all day. You cook meat
in a black kettle; its juices drool. My hungry body.

left you in the dream of a blue motel. Empty-handed
you began to dance, sang a song for everybody.

When is a comet a simple blurred eye of dust
and ice? This woman lives in a blanket, is somebody.

She is always looking for home. Wind has helped,
and lovers. They appear in night’s deep body

and love her with the memory of brown wood and snow
in spring. The only home we know: ground, wind, this body.

From Ground, Wind, This Body

Our home eventually blew down,
stained planks shattered 
under the winds of his panic.
We held our jackets high

over our heads like bright sails 
and tried to fly away. He lived
in the propane fumes of his van, 
trash collecting under

its axled belly. Each day he called out 
to his enemies, hunkered behind
the unkempt hedges. Yellow flowers 
dared to bloom on those greening branches

at the perimeter of war, our homeless home.
Our small bodies airborne for only moments: 
sewn as we were to that darkening battlefield 
of our father’s mind.

From Ground, Wind, This Body