I tell you it’s the flower of death./ The flower that reposes/ with words shut into the old.
A running dog/ Tries to strike/ The stagnated twilight
memory is another flowering of imagination, / seductive as any other beauty and why
one can eat / memories too / but still expect / to starve
Because I’m trembling, because can it be true? / Is this a dream? / Because of the delightful irony / That you—are not a he.
Now more than ever is time to wake again / and run with cousins across scurf to the barn / to dislodge chickens from their roosts
It’s dangerous to lie down / mid-day, late March and dark, / a heavy, wet snow falling from the sky
And the turkey burned dimly against / the urgency of distant and trailing lightning. / Burned against the absence of rain. / Burned and lit the edges of cool sand blue.
the mile markers, the billboards roofing houses / with offers of adult toys, gas / and oil bathed potatoes.
nothing yet published / I bought an IBM Selectric / a testament to / dedication since I / didn’t own a car & barely / rented a room in a small house
My father’s father was / a gravedigger. He scraped the dirt / from under his birdclaw finger / nails every night