Imagine this place existing
its volcanic oddly rock- and steam-filled terrain
the blackest beach offering amber and purple stones
so starkly opposed to the great blue sea surrounding
so other-wordly carved and colored
compared to the rolling fields
of the places I’ve known.

In a time when travel was an even greater endeavor
    than our 24-hour saga to get to this quaint AirBnb
Who would have known
how different some other place could be?
And who would have thought to ask?
How privileged we are to be able to say,
    “I’ve never been there.
    I’ve no reason to.
    Let’s go!”

The space and mobility of this life
    astounds me.
Our collective world has grown exponentially
even since my childhood
    of internet-less news
    and anxiously-awaited snail mail.

There is so much to see
Some much space to be covered
    – so quickly
    – so easily
But still
Should we?
In another life
I’d never have seen these blocky mountains
    towering over this horse-dotted terrain.
Is it better to know the vast expanses as a visitor?
Or what is closest at heart, at home?

Hear distant wailing 
Just an empty warning sign 
Of winds yet to come

dear snail-shell

how is the lighting in there with your opaque ceiling affording the sun in any season     I love your body—how with it you are slow but invite introspection

intimacy or solitude comes without shock and you accommodate yourself ample room in any terrain    —even to sink to depths upon filling with water and your passengers amen

made of earth mineral you are ofearth and your name sounds like how you are known  as being      inside a mouth you take  foraging and forever

to say   if I were standing in the middle of where you begin Id be 100 percent safe from elements and people with 5 passageways of you gartered around me 

you must have the best Einsteinian perspective  :  :  able to see past  :   future  :   present   from the same place / same moment  

& I love how nerdy & forgetful your tenant is     how unforgettable 

you are in the windowsill or inside my palms center only once youre vacated      I love that I draw you in my margins when I’m dreamy or off-focused 

It shows how much organic we are how much eachother  is the pivot-secret if you ask me    I love how loyal you are to perfection 

how you remind me perfection is simplicity sometimes and also the golden mathematical ratio so basically you’re holy even the geeks say 

I love how your name sounds like my name   snail shell  it’s so hopeful and open the way nail and sail both fit inside your name after the letters 

have been rearranged & still left room to grow        shell

I must confess—I forget the park’s name.
Lomond View? Bannister? No matter.
I remember the grass: prickly, stiff,
straw-thin blades that stabbed the summer dirt,
which sifted between my toes
like bread flour, like silt at the Stockton viaduct’s lip.

That greedy grass—
barbed, starving, eager to run with the river
that bent beside it,
babbling praise to the God
no one sees but everyone believes when barefoot.

I came tumbling down,
laughing or screaming—who remembers which—
and in that tumble,
sacrificed my hot-pink Woolworth zoris,
foam lambs flung to that petty God
who collects all unpaired things:
socks, lunch money, and dignity.

What is gained by such sacrifice?
My soles, freed from plastic stings,
met earth as if meeting truth.

My prize?
Bits of molded plastic scattered across the knob,
part puzzle, part relic,
awaiting resurrection.

Back to the barbecue—
tin foil, grey suet, and miracles:
a wheel found beneath the oak,
a seat back in the shadow of spruce,
and my father, my uncle—
electric with joy,
wires above crackling in holy witness
as they cobbled salvation from ruin.

The Big Wheel took form.
Red body, blue plug-holes gaping,
shoelace axles and a mother’s makeup mirror
made do for style.
Uncle Bill, square-armed, brave fool,
took his vow as the first rider.

Down he launched—
into the same sacrificial hollow,
spinning to a stop like the commercial said,
smiling back at us like the sun breaking a rule.

Eight open mouths
screamed to be next.
Even Momma, rose-lipped and silk-scarfed,
let loose a yell
that cracked the world open.
She said later it never happened—
but I know her masks.
I saw her joy.

By day’s end, none of us
were standing in it.
We were standing on it—
courage and wheel grease
lifting our spirits off the soil.

Each time I hear the shriek of a tire,
or the rasp of trike wheels on sidewalk,
I return to that hill,
to the moment when time paused
and I made a trade with God.

A fair trade:
foam zoris
for the memory of laughter,
for a seat in the sun,
for a glimpse of my mother
as the star of her own unspoken rebellion.

Somewhere, maybe,
she wears my zoris still—
heaven’s sidewalks warmed
beneath her feet.

Every day I spend away
You glitch a little more,
Your expressions fade
And my memory falters
Day by day,

Did you have green eyes
Or blue,
Brown hair
Or blonde,
Did I crane my neck to look at you
Or were we eye to eye?

Last time we talked,
Did your curls meet your eyes,
Did your smile shine across the room,
Did you touch my arm,
Or is that all just a glitch?

On the day before my last
day of work I thought I should
clear the coffee cups off my
desk.

To do:
1.Organize each tilting cabinet,
clean out every jamming drawer. 
2. Wipe the moisture rings off
the expensive greige veneer
I hate. 
3. Dust my shelf, erase
tiny smudge of footprints,
the last vestiges of my
King Kong action figure. 
4. Pretend I’ve never been here

I should clean the slate.  

I should write a note, thanking my boss, 
my friends, my partners in arms.

Action Item:
Unveil a custom cake, pithy saying on grocery 
store buttercream, lurid and sweating beneath
its plastic dome. Just leave it on the table. No 
pomp, no circumstance. Play it cooler than 
the fridge you yanked this from.  

I should take the pay raise and stay.
I could still ask, negotiate my terms. 
Remain stuck in a winding web, convincing 
myself I hardly ever see the spider anyway. 

Action Item: 
Forget previous action item. 

I could live in fear of new beginnings. 
Tremble, shrink away from new
steps on a new path. I could trudge
my tired road, again,  sun casting 
old shadows back across my heels
like knives.  

To Do: (ammended) 
1. Leave right at 5:00 
2. Coffee for commute home, and
to the side, a single serving of cake.
3. When the barista calls your name, 
take the order. Take a Deep breath.

We are always in the midst of leaving. 

4. Salt over my shoulder. Medalion. Warding spell. 

Anything. Everything’s a prayer now. 

5. Forget I’ve ever been here

Clouds in the sunrise sky like Superman ice cream and the neighbor is already ranting at the suspicious robins in his yard and the houses of the neighbors and their closed blinds and my television is blaring with strobe-light orange men and the failing Dutch and Tony Stark on mushrooms and ketamine and my inbox is already pinging with emails from students who have forgotten how to breathe and my eggs are frying in oil and burning my wallet and the kids with their broken guitars and chargers and drums and video games and notebooks and remotes are still asleep upstairs and the leaf blowers are already firing up out back and my mother is in Florida with the real crazies and here I am seeing only the shadows lining the trees and parked cars and wishing I could afford mind-altering drugs and golden toilets so I could grow the rainbow afro and red plush nose and cartwheel down the sidewalk spilling loose change from my baggy pockets for an Andalusian dog to find on its bouncing walk in the evening and lick clean while my eyes bleed on the stoop and coral snakes wind through the tall grass at the edge of my driveway and here the day has gone again with boiling veins and constitutions read in pig Latin.

The ephemeral stream beside
my house holds treasures.

It’s rocky bed lined with generations of
junk woven between rocks and roots

?Take it out back and dump it in the river?

Spring rains reveal buttons, springs,
hubcaps, handles, and shards of old dishes

?Take it out back and throw it in the woods?

washed down from the old smokehouse or
unburied from the banks where it was cast

forgotten for ages as moss covered stones
and trees grew tall around the edges.

?Take it out back and chuck it down the hillside?

One time, my kids uncovered an entire
Pyrex casserole dish intact while digging

for gold along the stream path as
part of some game.

?Keep the front yard looking good?

They gifted it to me, I bleached it
clean and still use it to make cobblers.

?Lyrics from “Take It Out Back” by Chuck Brodsky

Phrases flying past my ears
never quite reaching their target.
Slide after slide,
this professor never pauses to refill
her lungs,
we gasp in unison 
as the screen flashes 
tiny scribbles above our heads 
each filled with 8+ syllable words
that sound completely made up.
Classmates tuned in,
I bond with little blue birds circling my eyes
praying to catch as many
droplets of information as I can…

our firehose of content is never
turned off.

You are on the threshold
Of manhood
Barely 19
A December baby
Like my daughters  

Your eyes could be those of
My father
My brother
My nephew
The son I never had  

Your cheeks are pock-marked
With acne
The kind that will scar  
The record says
You spent a month in solitary

And still you aren’t
Penitent: you aren’t sorry
You refuse to obey orders
You try to escape  

You were a boy once
What scars do you carry 
What         (or)         who     raised
This rage in you