In the great night, my heart will go out.  
                                                            –Papago  

Boundless blue, blue of longing   
(says Rebecca Solnit),
blue of distance, where you are not,    
where you think you can never go—       

        You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley—  

Shrink, solemnly, into yourself   
(says Virginia Woolf),
into that wedge-shaped core of darkness
no one sees.  Expand
into those limitless depths.      

        You’ve got to walk it for yourself—  

To be in relation to everything
around us, above us, below us   
(says Terry Tempest Williams)
is to see earth, sky, bones, blood
whole, even holy.       

        Nobody else can do it for you—  

If we were as capable of trust
as we are susceptible to fear   
(says Edward Abbey),
we might learn something new
or some truth so very old
we have all forgotten it.    
   
        You’ve got to walk it for yourself.

fireflies ascend
sending messages aloft
light is always fleeting

Beloved daughter
before I was alive
I was a shabti
a clay vessel
a clay vassal 
brought to the land of the dead
a suburban cul-de-sac
to serve the head of the household
doing the work 
that had been modeled
by the hands who created me

I was ignorant of 
his machinations
blind to 
his abuses
mute against 
his rules

until
until

My dearest child
I will always carry
the unspeakable damage
done to you 
while I was breaking 
free

If this was the twilight zone,
and everyone was gone
and I was Henry Bemis,
I would stroll along every
avenue in Paris, in Rome,
in Capri, Venice, Amsterdam,
Sicily, London, Barcelona,
all the places of my dreams.
And I would weep for knowing
that they were only worth
all the people in between.

Today’s work was hard
driving stakes to trellis tomatoes.

Those T-posts growing heavier with each one,
and the more I hammered the post-driver,

the more I felt its weight too.

I still feel reverberations of every hit
pounding through my body

metallic clink clink clink echoing in my eardrums.

I lay here thinking of how buff I’d be
if I did such intense physical labor every day.

I lay here thinking of how broken
I’d be in a few more years,

grateful my livelihood doesn’t depend on
paying with vigor

thankful to those who labor unnoticed,
those without options,
those whose work is unending,

doing jobs that uphold us all. 

Are you from Cadence 

or Melody? Your marking

so different from theirs—

instead of tan body

your tail and underbelly

are white—in case you 

can not see yourself

and your mate doesn’t tell.

Couldn’t keep me running
even if you tried.
Every screaming sensation
lost in the limelight.
Nerves fall apart
muscles stretch too far.
All this for 11.35
caught between good and bye.

Only a few make it five terms.
We are all term limited,
except, for Scott.
He’s here to make sure we are
or to take us out when he wants.

He thinks the conference room
is his execution room.
It’s where he goes to assasinate.
He has killed in there before.
It’s where he tried to kill me.

Except, I exited before he could.
I lived to write about it.
Three times a year I lost 1st class 
travel and hotels with all expenses.
But, I got out Scott Free.