January 24, 2023 (3.)

You’ve misplaced, Maria dear,
your words again. They’re somewhere 
stuck in the television of your mind, 
and it doesn’t even matter
to me. You sing
lullabies like the birds, laugh 
head thrown back hands clapping
when I flap my wings. 
And when you forget 
a cop is a cop and call them
the blue the blue the blue,
I know what you mean. It is sad 
the brute violence 
of the long arm, the sick brain. 
But, Maria my dear, 
when you hold my face gently in your hands 
and kiss me twelve times on the cheek
you are speaking
perfect love. 

Speck in blue

It is marvelous how we change! 

After you quit, I could not bear 
the enormity of your absence
beside me as I slept.
Your not-body roared 
with fever scorching skin
I could have fried an egg 
on your empty pillow. 
Opposite me your not-body 
took so much space, spread
like a flayed fish stinking
to the highest heavens.
Grabbed by your not-body the blankets 
left me folded in on myself, 
small shivers never enough 
to keep me warm or protected 
as your not-body flailed 
through the night madly 
your not-arms into my face, stunning
even the brightest of moons. 

Eventually,
though I felt my decisiveness cruel
I evicted your not-body. 
That ghost slipped out 
through a crack in the window
and through the front door a parade 
of all my belongings
re-announced their preciousness,
stomping and hollering and beating
like a living heart.
I filled this house 

with the lush design of my dreams. 
And I did dream! 
And I did wake from those dreams,
resuscitated by the paradox
of your not-body and my body
existing in a future I could squint at,
like a ferry on the horizon
a speck in blue
coming home.

January 24, 2023 (2.)

Jim slept at the kitchen table
his face plastered down against a pillow
cushioning the crooked edge of his nose. 
That’s nice, I thought, remembering 
the other gentleman who did not receive 
such practical kindness.  
The chart note says something 
regarding words of comfort, 
but Medicare doesn’t know I haven’t 
called his wife back yet. She’s with a friend
dying of cancer on a cruise, and I will
eventually. Before I returned to my car 
and waved goodbye to the cat 
perched in the laced window watching,
I placed my right hand on Jim’s back,
closed my eyes, and slowed my breath 
to the quiet lull of his mid-morning dreams. 

January 24th, 2023 (1.)

I woke up again

before the alarm
gray light creeping
a sliver of crow 
not sure if the milk 
has gone bad
my cat needs fed
and nausea rolls
into another day

I only need a moment

I am pained to remember 
body is more than skin
more than this shared heat

and the way my mind turns

to rosy roaming mush 

when lavished 

with some softness–

It shocks me loose.

Stop, let me gather 

heaven in a handbasket 

I’ll come back to you

I only need a moment

Genevieve at the window

Genevieve at the window 
watches for signs 
of spring– 

        cherry and plum pops bright in the nose 

        the great green return of gentle shade
It is January.  

The neighbors pass 
on by. Children, 
like conifers, grown 
are long gone. There used to be
a blue pool,
dogs, sometimes 
a husband...

Still Genevieve 
clutches her red 
walker waiting–

        bath aide on Wednesdays
        oxygen drone in the dark
Boredom spreads like black
eyed Susans in summer.

She thinks she will last

until then.

Single yellow leaf

a single 
    yellow leaf 
released 
    from the branch 
        catches 
    my eye 

i stop and ask
    what happens
to fallen leaves
and a stranger 
        tells me 

    life 
breaks
    down 

and then
    becomes 
        life again 

        i trust the stranger

            perhaps this is what the dying man meant 
        when he asked me to pray 
                for life in general...

       perhaps he felt 

    his own decomposition 

        as evidence of 

               his immortality. but

    i can’t help 

but 

    remember

    the single 

        yellow leaf 

First date

I see them at a distance first. 

Tall, nicely tailored pants, 
a hat not made for this weather. 

Then their voice. 
Deeper than I had imagined, 
and gentle, saying my name. 

Then their voice telling jokes 
and laughing about something 
you wouldn’t understand,
but I do. 

The plants at the conservatory
distract me marvelously
from my rain-soaked jeans 
and the awkwardness 
of being alive

and the terrible vulnerability 
of the reason for our meeting.
I am thirty-two, and I have never
been loved – really loved – and 
they are thirty-three, perhaps 
just as open

Words that we care about

Jonah says a poem is words that we care about,

words like letters spelled c-a-t, sounds like kāk, named Britta.

Outside a cardinal prophesies from the roof below

the arrival of a letter that echoes like church bells.

Well, I want to run from that lonely song! 

With cat and cake and Britta in tow
I will warble my way to a tomorrow 
where silence can be a poem, too... 

where silence isn’t the same as self-immolation.
Because after she died my tongue turned fire-
crisped log lagging behind my longing 
to rescue the too-hot words I care about.

Skipped

Their important words skipped 
like stones over the river 
flung with abandon, 
a practiced arm.  

I begged to hold 
the stones in my hand, admire
closely the pinkish grooves and grit, 
and warm them. Instead,

I followed every arc and splash, 

squinting for the sake of us.  

And they kept hurling
across the river their words,

as if they were weightless. 

Squak Mountain

Silly me, I had forgotten

a forest is not simply
many trees standing together 
without roads, 

                        and a person is not 
just the collection of stories 
they spin about themself, 

and a poem– 

                    a poem is something other
not just lines of words arranged 
from one place to another, beating 

Annie Dillard was right about the light 

the light that streamed 
towards me, silver speckled 
through neon maze 
and bouncing off
the surfaces of things shimmering
then sinking ashen with 
the shameless wind, opened 
a door for a moment 

Regarding perfect lovers...

i want a lover who looks me in the eye. 

i want a lover who loves my cat. 

i want a lover who doesn’t talk when hiking. 

i want a lover who purposefully goes to therapy. 

i want a lover who wants to melt with me, who wants to feel my fingertips move slowly over their skin, who wants to move their fingertips slowly over mine.

i want a lover who creates, who is a creator. 

i want a lover who has room for the bigness of me in their heart, and isn’t too afraid. 

i want a soft and hard lover. 

i want a lover who is good at things i’m not, like making coffee and singing and camping, remembering to do taxes and birding and making green things grow and other things, too.  

i want a lover who inspires me, who is a little bit or a lot bit magic. 

i want an earnest lover. 

i want a lover who has faith. 

i want a lover who won’t touch me when i sleep, and doesn’t snore or grind their teeth. 

i want a present lover, who takes the time to go and be slow.

i want a lover who likes holding hands in public. 

i want a lover who is glad that i am wed to the earth.

i want a lover who wants to make home with me. 

i want a lover who will tell me when i’ve hurt them, and help me love them better. 

i want a sexy lover, with nice lips and a firm grip, who thinks i’m sexy, too, who loves the way i move. 

i want a lover who drinks alcohol, but not too much. 

i want a lover who loves classic country music. 

i want a story-telling lover. 

i want a lover who isn’t afraid of the dark, or the light. 

i want a lover with personal flair, and oddities. 

i want a lover who will tell me why they love me, and mean it, and show it. 

i want a joyful and playful lover. 

i want a lover who thinks and feels and cares deeply, and shares their thoughts and feelings and cares with me, and isn’t too afraid, or is and does it anyway.  

i want a lover who knows the work of dreaming and healing and learning and changing is never complete, just like this list. 

Alert

If the only things you have practiced 
are busyness and worry, 
you will not die peacefully.* 

If the only way your body knows 
is to do and do more, 
you will die hands tied 
by your own delusions of importance.

Death will hollow out your cheeks 
and you will be the fool getting botox. 

Death will design a scavenger hunt of your very last memories, 
and you will refuse to play. 

Death will stride up your driveway, jangling your keys on a rusted chain  
and you will draw the curtains, pretending you’re not home.


*Except in the not-so-rare event that you develop one of mankind’s many demented diseases, 

in which case it’s a toss up whether you die, as they say, “pleasantly confused” or in holistic desperation. 

Student

A year ago we sat across from one another drinking coffee in someone else’s dining room. If I remember correctly (your memory was always sharper than mine), you had just returned from a run, and I had made us breakfast. Something with eggs, toast. Filled with the promise of morning and young love, we played a game. I asked you, What is music? 

You rolled your eyes and answered, sounds organized with the intent of producing an effect. Good music, you explained, demands surrender and self awareness – turns the listener into a child strapped into the backseat of a car lost to || the || undulating || blur || of || forest || and the \\ thumping // windshield \\ wiper // swish. You were trying to convey something about the debris of the past 

but I was distracted by the commanding union of your four fingers as you spoke. How compelling you were. You leaned away from me, your voice grew louder. Seemingly so detached, you clamored after the cascade of ideas that poured from your mouth. I delighted in your bumptious self-interruptions, your slipping into this beat or that, your silent echoes and your sideways breaking-aparts. I felt you there as a whole body and more. Much more. And distinct. You said you prefer the whale’s big bellow, but I’ve always been taken by the cheer of a robin. 

Earlier today I was reading Mary Oliver’s Poetry Handbook, trying to understand the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. I couldn’t. Something about a heartbeat, that buried regular thing, so impeccably organized until it is not. You know, my cat wanders rooms and screams. She screams at every dusty corner and empty wall as if to tell me you will never really be a poet and that’s ok. I am content to remain the child in the backseat of beauty. 

What I want to say is, I am sorry that I doubted your happiness. What I didn’t understand then is that happiness is like the top of a mountain. Only with the hot burn of muscle and hurting faith do you arrive, but you do arrive. You drink water. You take a photo of heaven’s edge. You stretch your sight to the horizon and graze your fingertips against the twirling sky. Eventually the light is drenched in blue, and hazy, and you turn to face your own descent. But the mountain never goes anywhere. The mountain is always there, humming. 

Cindy

Cindy waited like a masterless puppet 
in the corner of the couch, hanging 
on… Christmas tree on
her sweater, still

…staring at a painting of Paris, I made 
observations as simple as death–
and Cindy made a river, 
as muddy as youth, and as lonely

She looked up at me… with traveling eyes
said, I feel ocean wide, and nothing else.
Slow shards of helplessness punctured
the present, left the past… bleeding out  

we held hands and surrendered, listened...
the silences of our bodies
lapping up against each other
like waves, like waves

Always

The full moon kept me. Up all night. Hostage to the whims. Of sweat and dreams. Horses dove muzzle first into the swimming pool. Splashed dangerously like queer. Bandits stealing loaves of bread for the poor. Saving not-quite-fantasy for a Seattle sunny day. Meaning. The gentlest of rain. Still falling, still. One pillow too firm, the other too. Far away. And so I am stranded somewhere between. But for Rosmarie I garden. The gaps. Trust. Dawn will crack open the dark sky from the dark earth. Jovian red seizes the horizon then. Orange stretches, feathers pink. And always in the east. Always a sun rising.

Perspective

I am trying to learn something 

about the distance between 

us. On my shoulder 

you placed your hand and 

I mindlessly kissed it. Skin,

yours, strange and somewhat cool,

felt like my skin. Later, 

I crept by the purple house. 

Fourteen blocks could not have been further 

from the truth. Like, driving I see 

Mount Rainier on the southern horizon, 

and she looms larger than 

anything in my life. But 

I’ve climbed her. I have been 

so close to her peak,

I’ve seen her snow sweat 

under late summer heat. 

How impossible. That was 

the same mountain I see now

speeding home, speeding

towards nothing important. 

Maria with the wild eyes

Maria with the wild eyes
waving at the city’s trees
here one minute, gone the next

Maria with the purple breast 
showing me it’s hard like fruit 
here one minute, gone the next 

Maria with the paint-chipped nails 
scratching skin on unmade bed
here one minute, gone the next

Maria with the candy laugh 
finding joy in bird-shaped clocks
here one minute, gone the next 

Maria with one patient son
losing track of when he called 
here one minute, gone the next 

Maria with the island past 
crossing with white baby lord 
here one minute, gone the next 

Maria with the wild eyes 
slipping, falling, bursting, sleeping 
here one minute, gone the next.

Neighbor

A familiar beckoning from the spilling-over- 
the-sidewalk garden. Good morning, wooly woundwort.
How unbelievably soft you are, like a whispered prayer,
like a ready-made poem in the palm of my hand. 
Promise me that when I die you’ll be honest 
about all of my faults, my foes, my irksome way of leaving
the top unhinged from the honey jar, 

my desperate way of loving you.

Cal Anderson

The whippet wearing a yellow raincoat
bobs like a broken see-saw 'round
the grassy dog park, delighted by 
the ball that goes and goes and goes
just for him. I watch the whippet run 
while the whip cold wind paints 
my face red with a hiss and a bang.  
Behind the bench a crowd of 
hop-hornbeams sleep for spring, even
as the blue breaks through above. 
Meanwhile the skateboard teens do tricks 
with a lazy vengeance. I stand and turn
towards home wondering, could I be happier 
wearing a yellow raincoat.