Driving home, burgeoning darkness. 

I had some alone time yesterday
the most I’ve had all year.
Peace and quiet.
I could hear myself think.
I baked
took my time with the yardwork
went to the store with no list and no kids.
I felt free.
Deeper than it all though
even in my recognition
of the positive effects of rest and relaxation
I felt a longing, a loneliness.
Children are young for such a short time.
The hour on overstimulating hour
we spend together now
is irreplaceable.
I know I will mourn once they
leave each morning for school.
So I count the hours until they return
and try to enjoy the rest I have left
before the pieces of my self
that grew legs and hearts and beautiful little brains
walk back through that door
yelling “Dad!” over and over…..

The smell of tuna floats out of
a refrigerator that someone
keeps leaving open.
A brown bag with someone’s
name on it sits in the trash
because someone else ate
what was in it.
Ants and ant themed super-people
find their way in
pursuing the smell of
exposed food.
Office dishes are left in the sink
on top of personal dishes
and oddly stained tupperware.
Something blew up in the microwave
and someone forgot to clean it up.
Someone else baked a cake
for everyone in the office
but I took it home with me
last Wednesday.

Blown veins bruise white marble arms, reveal
the soft ache where I turn into blue jade.

Unmovable, I’m poised in hell, burning in trance, 
a placid lotus glimmering on a pond’s surface.

Center myself, find it temperate, find anything
tolerable, my heart of stone steals no extrinsic heat.

With crossed legs, open palm, facing the heater,
lost, I float stoic on the deep navy sea of my floor.

In my skull migraine blood pours as rivers, ripples
through ancient memories, panning through 

dark hours for light. A daily ritual to self-immolate,
then wade through the water to get clean again.

What a relic of suffering I’ve become in the process,
carved down into this small, sharp memorial statue. 

Grotesquely serene, like a little gisant when I sleep,
my eyes stay open as though I’m already dead. 

It was something I heard somewhere
and never questioned, that the vine was sent
to consume us, invasive perennial sprawling
its varicose veins across America before it spread
to choke the whole blue marble. At the time
I thought that sounded scary. I imagined myself
trapped in a dark room, damp roots constricting
wrist and windpipe. Now I think, Please,
let it be kudzu. Let the vine that ate the South
be the only war this planet knows, let it take hold
of ankle and AK-47, bury them under leaf and root,
trellis the earth in a great green blanket,
the whole world a soft place to land.

is a snake. It moves
sideways in curves.

It lurks, half hidden
under fallen leaves,

the fear of facing it
more frightening than

the thing itself. It ambushes 
you, out of nowhere, as you

try to resume walking
the ordinary path of your life.

You will spend your life not
knowing when it will sink

its teeth into your flesh,
discharge its venom. 

I used to hate the way 
little pieces of my hair would curl and stick up
when I pulled my hair back
but now it makes me smile
when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror
looking up from washing my hands at the sink
and see myself at present and in memory,
both at the same time

Something about this time of year
makes me feel that I am coming home
to myself

Solstice approaches and

windows seem open

air freshes

crickets blare

traffic pops without perfume

windows seem open

germ killer evaps to gas

cleans HVACd air fresher than

spring in this sealed room

windows seem open

but I hear technicolor bugsongs

allthing sensory cave into me

volume intrudes and connects

me here in this tomb

windows seem open

but the backfiring cars just overfrozen jars

popping geometry of crystal and gas

dripping with shards, ice drops

water broken from this freezer’s womb

covid manufactures memories

like taking out jars

freezer door open

now dripping

gaping, my mind can’t exhume

unlocked house doors accidental

cicadae throats joining backyard band

I swallow another drop

sizzle pop gas

waiting for T cells to

find me find me

find me soon

Serene is a placid lake on the television’s scrambled screen
Blissful is a breath in tree pose before I lose my balance
Rugged is a man standing on a cliff like he owns it, pretending survival
Beautiful is the canopy buffeted by sunlight, not the spider in my hair
Reverent is our collective gaze toward the river though the car window

Moss at the base of the trunk soaks up water from last night’s rain
Trees transpire, water coursing through xylem
Birds I can’t identify call to each other, threatening, beckoning, yearning
The forest lives.
It is.

Bitumen bears shadows’
shapes cut by clouds.

Greyhound on the causeway:
surrender twice.