1. Give and Receive
Earth
emits its own warmth—
microbial
and musky.
A
dark rift erodes
in
the snow’s underside.
Water
trickles into soil
that gives of
itself.
2. Lilac Leaves
A thousand small
green spades,
poise
to dig up memory.
If I succumb,
what would I
become?
3. Daffodils in February
You taunt me with
April,
and my thoughts
turn to
reckless,
impatient love.
4. The Prevailing Westerlies
Soon after a
flood recedes,
or the trembling
roar of disaster subsides,
life proceeds at
whatever pace
it requires.
We have no defense
against the
humble drip of persistence.
Only from a
distance can we perceive
the 10-degree
bend
in great forests
of resistance,
shaped by the
gentle motion
of air.
5. A Matter of Degree
On this road
besieged with salt-wash,
the future fades
to beige.
Low clouds ripple
into the horizon,
indistinguishable
from mountains.
Ice, like marble
waterfalls,
tumble
in
frozen
curls
and trees.
Flocked in
snow-mist and salt,
it wallpaper the hillsides.
Later, at the
museum,
I study Mary’s
face.
How the angle of
her brow,
the languid
flagging of her eyes and lids,
and the sag in
her cheeks,
by just a few
degrees,
freeze her in
sorrow.
Her grown son
an open wound
across her lap.
6. Happiness
Their house
filled
with dither and
din,
misheard
repetition,
and
misrepresentation,
as if they were
on
some plaintive
search
for a key
when
she remembered
hers,
—buried deep in
her pocketbook—
and he reclaimed
his
—from the
right-hand corner of the mantle—
just where they
put it (for safekeeping)
every day for the
past 65 years.
7. Agave
Some
college girl
intently
colors in
the
lines of a butterfly.
Her
ear buds channel music,
obscuring
our train’s whistle.
Fueled
by heavy rain,
muddy
ruts puddle in.
Hardly
March, spring erupts in this valley.
Cows
bow their heads
to
the luxuriant meadow.
A
few palm trees, awkward but majestic,
form
a conduit connecting
low
clouds to ground,
but
without a hint of lightning
from
the heavens.
Because
I'm from the East,
I
don't know the succulent
sprawled
like a gangly bicolored green octopus—
an
untamed beast,
up
and overflowing the embankment.
Approaching
the next station,
I
fumble for the intimate shorthand
of
naming things.
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