When
i.

raise a glass.
pour life.
don’t say when.

January
v.

my returning
makes you wish for
days I’m gone
said the wind



in forgetting
we uncover truth
said the moon



let me bring you
a picnic
said the river
let me sing
a lullaby of
tree tops
tangled roots and
bones
because I remember
rocking you
because you are all
I hold

January
iv.

I’ll meet you there and
race right back
again
said the wind



I do not care for
cheese
said the moon



people forget
said the river
it’s easy to see how memory slips and
settles

January
iii.

I tend to evening chores
tomorrow’s worries television news
lend me your apron
said the wind there is still time
to drift and dust and
polish smooth

in falling
we rise
said the moon

filter out what’s potable
replace with
chemical equations
partake when good and ready
dredge dam redirect and
levy I could tell you stories
said the river
ripples only if
you see them echoes only
if you hear

January
ii.

I am dashing
said the wind
charming steam
from smokestacks whisking it
away as dreamers wake
still reaching

At the end of it all
is beginning
said the moon

I will wait my turn
said the river

January
i.

I bite and drain cheeks
of color said the wind
steal breath from those intending
to live forever

In the middle of cold
is no cold
said the moon

I am still here
said the river

Freedom
v.

Footsteps crunch.
Air cuts like knives as wheels
revert to stone.

Everything grinds.

Even the moon
is slow to rise.

Beneath us,
rivers wait
for Spring
and
freedom, always

freedom.

 

Freedom
iv.

A few things that = freedom from combing hair:

dreadlocks.
hats.
sleeping all day.
being bald.
being five. or the baby of your family at any age, unless
you are already bald, therefore free.
not having a comb.
having a comb but not using it.
having Fisher Price hair.
there are more things but it’s time to stop this list and find
a comb.

Freedom
iii.

To The Guy At The Poetry Reading Who Ran Into My Eye:

First of all, I didn’t know exactly how to address you, so let’s just
say Ben.
And second,
I didn’t mean to stare in the first place, but
there you were:
in the way of my eye.
Listening to
the poet,
which I was supposed to be listening to, too
but got caught up
in watching you.
I wanted to see
how the words got from the poems
into you. So I could sneak in behind
and
explore two or maybe three
parts of you, like
nowhere near
that tattoo,
and the hand holding
your notebook, and the space
someone else might have missed
below your knee–

But just one knee, Ben.
Because there is freedom in
not knowing.

Freedom
ii.

Here,
in the middle of the very cold and
the very bright,
you are tasting freedom.

It is with you in the
breathing in and
spitting out
of words.

It is charting the course
set
by taking no
action.

Everything is.

Freedom
i.

snowflakes rampage.
giddy, covering branches.
freedom from leaves.

Before
v.

kiss the children.
gather light and laughter.
before sunset.

Before
iv.

I had already
gone for a dip and
taken a sip and skated a bit and
sunk below bottom and
come up for air and
searched and believed and
forgotten to breathe and been
washed out by tides in the sea
of your eyes
before
you thought

to blink.

Before
iii.

To The Grumpy Man In The Underground Parking Lot:

Don’t worry. We will squeeze the
bitter out of you and use it
to make Grandma’s German chocolate cake.

Your not-to-be-bothered glare will taste
simply delicious
with milk.

Your humpf to our greeting is
dark chocolate chips–the extra twice
chocolate-in-chocolate.

Your frown will be frosting, grown firm
at the edges.
Waiting to be bitten.

In the days before we learn
what you have learned,
you will be our favorite after-school treat.

Even the dog will beg
to lick the plate.

Before
ii.

Before the
freeze and the
warming and the sailing and
exploring and marching
and the camps and the
conquering and
the burning and the
fighting and the claiming and
the rounding up and the
taking and wasting
and misplacing and the
assassination, indoctrination,
annihilation and
the bombing and the
theories and the stripping and
pumping and spilling and
polluting and the dust and the
the floods and the fires
and the earthquakes and waves
and the leaks and reforms
and repeals and
the ratings and the
commentary and the slogans and
the cute messages and the
the panels and the
shouting and aligning and
misguiding and the
keeping apart and not telling
and the left out and
the far right and the sickness
in our middles and the
turning away and the
pointing and the landmines
and all the others and the
not me and
the falling out of the sky and the
shooting,



We used to
take care of each other.

Before
i.

blue space.
dreams escape.
before dawn.

New
v.

autograph, hasty.
bathroom clock stopped.
last cigarette in a bag
for the cop.
not enough time
for sensible shoes.
dinner and dancing,
new-car-scent
new.