Clarity is buoyant in the dark.
I smell good weather stretching her palm
to hold a sun certain to rise.  

Today is the deadline.
Be it life or death, my heart is light.  

this sterling antenna entwined with a dangling limb,
gruff scratch of a car crash,                                rapt
           with a gnashing yowl,
this
         sour wassailing lascivious cats distend
across scuffled macadam and stuttering
street lamps strewn through the hedgerows
                               silvery peels of expended smelt
and a glowering
                               vision of Christ displaced
amidst scowling
                               gates dissembling rusting antlers—
whereby a
                                                        toddler hums
with a dimpled discretion
those first few bars of Dmitri’s Babi Yar,
                                          and the juniper shrub
                                  that a barrister’d twisted,
       tickling verdigrised teeth of a stunted fence,
recalls its morning’s
                                              surly stirrup of starlings
stringing their songs along groggily sprawling sycamores,

moths among bristling pin oaks,
the sky scrubbed red as a raucous knee

(attempting
             to trace
                  the shape of some semblance of
awe,
         that’s colored this way or
  no—
         transcribing from groaning
         bones of a vibraphone
         something akin to a feeling tone filliped
         by this or that,
              a coloratura of cramp bark berries,
              those stammering gods amongst fence slats,
                                                                               rippling,
                                                                  riffling,
                          pulse of a dulcet bell—
       black eye like a bulging knot hole bunging,
percussing, say, shuffling shifting sands,
this lustrous seam amid buckling concrete,
simpering veins of a hand outstretched about
restive ebony shucked from a stock or those
thwarted horns refined to these twiddling keys
that virginal feelers,
                                    small as a glistening vole
                          or swoln to a possum’s paunch
       caught cracked across staticky roadsides, evermore
grope for).

In the new apartment, living alone for the first time
in years, you want to start fresh with the walls,
so you strip off the faded old wallpaper,
only to find another layer beneath,
another under that, & one more
for good measure.

It’s like peeling an onion one layer at a time
and slicing it into rings, each cut
of the knife releasing a spray
that stings your eyes.

It’s like taking off your coat, then your shirt & jeans,
then your underwear & socks, then your
skin, standing there like nothing
but meat & bone.

It’s like with each layer of wallpaper you pull away
another decade of your life, your forties & thirties,
your twenties & teens, & by the end you’re a kid
in the schoolyard playing marbles
in the dirt, waiting for someone
to walk by.

they make it too easy–
throw your trash 
in the receptable;
roll it to sidewalk’s edge;
garbage men empty it;
return receptable to storage area;
repeat

doesn’t matter what you throw in there,
it is gone–carried away by strangers
in some bizarre ritual of denial
so you don’t even have to think about it
or take responsibility for the trash 
in your life

this ease of relief has transferred 
to other areas–we treat others
like trash, we refuse to even consider
that we have responsbilities
for ourselves or to others

rather, we go through life
creating more and more 
garbage, oblivious

they gather monthly
poets & visionaries
monarchs migrating
to Mexican mountaintops
with wings of joy & pain

I went over to John’s apartment a couple days after he died falling from the cliff 
he was climbing in the Dragoon mountains, to clear out anything that shouldn’t be seen 
by his parents who were coming from Illinois in a few hours for the terrible job 
of claiming his body, not wanting to add to their grief, which was different, I’m sure, 
from mine, but also heavy, like the skeleton steel of Decatur John once worked. 

I had the key he’d given me. I opened the door half-expecting Live Rust on the stereo, 
John’s booming hello, the musky funk of pumping iron, but it was

quiet. 

I took the weed and the bong I knew so well from the cupboard in the kitchen — 
there was a half drunk bottle of Sprite on the counter, a bite from a piece of toast — 
sat down with the laptop and erased the bookmarks to porn sites. On the desk: 
a poem he was working on, two tickets to a concert — Natalie Merchant, Tigerlilly Tour — 
a broken pencil, a half-dozen bottle rockets, leftovers from the Fourth, 
wicks trembling in the breeze of the AC —John kept it meat locker cold — 
a parking ticket the city of Tucson would never see paid. I left the dirty clothes 
on the floor of the bathroom, the toothbrush on the edge of the sink, 
looked in the chest of drawers and under the bed for the pistol I never found. 
When I felt I’d done the best I could, I pulled the door closed and left with my stash, 
a few grievous mementos, the feeling of having conducted an illicit act 
tempered by one of a good deed done. 

Back at my place, baked on fine weed, I waited until dark and launched a tear 
into the clear night sky, one more nameless star exploding above my head. 
My wail like a gun shot— the neighbors’ light came on.

A year out I thought I had the perfect dress
to wear to my daughter’s Hudson Valley wedding
although now she claims
my choice might not compare
with the vibe of the groom’s
mother or sister, or equal
the formality of her vision

We got the ’66 Galaxie Skyliner for the trip to Mexico
New on the Ford lot, a demo
Festooned in chrome
Dark red with the hippadrome top
Rubber black bullett bumper titties
White and red buckets, shifter on the consul
Thumb button reverse, rearview mirror down on the dash
Five thousand pounds loaded, 28 gallons of gas
120 easy on the skinny whitewalls, we tried it
Me and Yolanda
Lexington to the Tennessee line
3AM on a hot Sunday in August
200 miles in one and one half hours
Top down, buckets up tight 
Head down, grin made your jaw hurt
Took it down the Baha
Wrecked it in La Paz
Our bottle went down the pool drain, crushed and
Fouled the pump in Rosarito
Pulled on Tonto Publico in Playa Bolandra
Indecent exposure out back the Porto Maria Publix
Wrestled an aligator in a golf course pond
Propositioned a police officer
Who knew she was undisguised
Speeding in a Bently on Carretera Dixie
Yo’s run in with the XX film crew at Playa La Placeda
They should have treasured the footage
Flew Pan Am home on the run

At the edge of the cornfield
back home on the farm
my parents are soon to sell,
I find a perfect foot-long turkey 
feather striped black and white.

The wide, hollow calamus
reminds me of the time
Dad made us a quill pen
when we were young. Dark blue
ink, soft, white plume.

How fancy we felt, scratching words 
across unlined paper.
We wanted to burn the edges
to make the letters look old.
They would be, now. 

I take the turkey feather 
and give it to my sons, who exclaim
over its size, make it 
a most cherished prize
(at least for a day or two).

Tiny, precious things.
I wonder if they’ll remember, too.

sewn blimp-
a fly
inert beneath
crystals

un-cadaver :
fat.dead
creature
fractals
under
light
cracking
climbing swarm :
relations taken strict
desire

SLAP
light ! in stead
drink
jasmine vine