1.

You’re allowed to feel dissatisfied.
You do not have to be grateful 
for your sweet and blesséd life.
Aren’t there mountains? Yes,
beautiful and mist-drunk, but wild,
still. You just have to keep going,
even though I know it’s hard. 

2. 

Once I felt like something would hit me
on the head like Newton’s apple. A fable,
maybe, but it’s effective–to believe 
in a whole lot of something from nothing. 

3. 

Do you think the three-legged dog

smiles when he dreams,
or is it the setting of his canine face?
4. 

The sky is the color of buttermilk
and everything green limps humid,
and somehow you know it’s still on the lake,
even though you’re at home in your cool
apartment. You know that
a circus of bugs clamors around the oak tree,
and the birds huddle. It’s okay.