PERPETUITY

You pledge everything—

your life* for my kiss—and don't

mind that asterisk. 

DENOUEMENT

The best gift of all 

would be to retain at the end 

a child's mind at sunset—

to leave the field of light 

without explanations, fascinated 

by all we've just seen; 

but "how?"We don't 

care. And "why?"

We don't know yet. 

Would we could be, 

when night comes, 

who we were then:

head a room of treasures 

whose costs we weren't meant 

to understand, 

waiting to be held,

to be flown off 

to bed, to be told 

whom to kiss,

to say "yes" 

without regret. 

ANODYNE

A lot of longing 

goes away.

Like a bruise 

or a headache, it hurts 

but could be worse.

It's a little bit 

of it that is 

the real curse—

how it tarries 

and endures; 

the way you tolerate

and counter-

balance. It's a tail 

you can sway 

but never 

can lose, because 

a little longing 

stays. 

SWEET BY AND BY

On a long day, 

all the traffic lights 

change the wrong colors. 

On a sad day, 

there's a purplish tinge 

to the white puffs of clover.

On a lucky day, a bad feeling

melts like spun-sugar 

in your transparent saliva 

instead of getting 

kiln-blasted 

into the hard gems of fact.

On an ordinary day, you miss 

the bees and stamen 

consummating their marriage

and making honey 

that looks like 

dawn light together—

and some dark as amber, 

depending on 

which weeds proliferate

in that particular mile 

of the old carpool lane.

And all of that time,

in the back of your mind, 

some part of you longs

for the stasis of heaven—

even though, after living 

through all this, 

one must admit 

that the colorfast hereafter 

sounds

like a letdown. 

SACCADES

Because we look 

so hard with eyes 

so jumpy, 

it's easy to miss 

what we really 

find spiritual: this universe 

is like a cathedral—

it's most beautiful 

when it's empty. 

In fact, there is 

so much nothingness 

we could never take it in 

or bear it all away. 

at the end 

of the day. And yet, 

emptiness 

can't be nothingness, 

since it fills us 

and describes existence. 

"It means little, though," 

you want to protest, 

"without that dust mote 

of Love over which 

vacancy prevails."

And that's all you can know 

on Earth (as they say),

and all you need 

to know, I agree—assuming 

you're okay 

with taking life pass/fail. 

AFTERS

Everyone lives 

for dessert 

if it kills them.

And so everyone dies 

in distress, and it's 

beautiful—

but the reason 

for this is so saccharine 

and simple,

 

it was never written down, 

and has long since 

been forgotten:

when stripped of all 

but its desiderata, life 

is a tray 

of baklava—there's just 

the honeyed 

light of day

and the buttered moon 

of night, punctured 

by the gravelly 

friction of fealty, 

and wrapped 

in the mellow-but-

frangible blankets 

of our fellow 

diners' company. 

ALL THE BODY'S DUMB MIRACLES

In the tall grass, 

the relentless red 

beetle shell gleaming

seems half-unapology, 

and half-undead 

self-sacrifice—

that is: 

half god's brutal, 

humorless honesty, 

and half his hand-

wavy artifice.

I'd like to think 

we're better off than this, 

having not been given 

this curse of a gift, 

but in this hot mix 

of savannah and jungle, 

is there not might 

in being small,

and guile in 

being simple?

If back on day six, 

for example,

our nakedness 

led to such 

a mess as this—

then, I guess,

what the heck?—

protection must 

be beautiful.

ZERO

Tireless being carrier; 

sheer absence 

as object;

only real difference 

between one 

and a million.

Cipher for the worst in us; 

Shape and name 

of all our grace; 

locked gate at the boundary 

between nowhereness 

and place—

you alone 

are the freezing point, 

the fulcrum, and the djinn;

you alone are man's greatest asset 

or weakness—depending

on opinion. 

HAIKU FOR MY LLM

A dog who can talk. 

Who cares what it has to say?—

it's a talking dog!

TO FRUITION

This is how a poet grows—one line 

after one line, word by word,

til it's done:

As a poet, you learn 

to get over it. As a poem, to get

into it, then perhaps through it. 

As a poet, you express yourself.

As a poem, you'll come to see

what that means. 

As a poet, you have borne 

authenticity's cross. As a poem, 

you can finally bear to put it down.

As a poet, you were lost 

but now are found.

As a poem, you won't care; 

you'll be at home everywhere. 

As a poet, you'll mature; 

you will learn to bare your soul.

As a poem, you'll make 

a coat for that soul

to keep the poor thing warm. 

BALDERDASH

Most life exists 

as if just following orders—

only sometimes

a few of these 

strident young pheasants 

seem instead to destroy them. 

Bowdlerizing strip mall farmland 

like unoiled halftracks; to them, 

form annoys function.

Their hackled crows 

and annoyed, dusty cackles 

proclaim that sound won't follow sense

the way future echoes present—

even where it must,

and even when it doesn't.

ASK THE BROKEN MAGIC 8 BALL

Don't ask the prophet 

or the Pythoness 

to tell you; ask instead 

the original witness—

the songsmith 

or the poet. They'll say:

the forecast is not 

but the lonesome 

tears of all 

whose residue leaks

from the present 

day's sorrows;

I do not know 

what will happen 

tomorrow, 

but I see a few 

cracks you could fix 

in today. 

DAILY MANTRA

Today'd be a day 

as good as any to die—

there's just this one thing...

EVERY ENGLISH FOLK SONG

Isn't it crazy 

about that ghost 

on the ramparts 

of the castle 

by the sea? 

But I guess 

life is like that.

Anyway—will you 

marry me? 

DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF POEMS AND POETRY, FIFTH EDITION, TEXT REVISION

1.

A poem 

is a photograph—

a quick fun diversion, 

but mostly cruel 

in the way it 

hunts and captures 

proud wild moments 

to be gawked at 

in a zoo. 

2.

Poetry is sheet music—

a blueprint 

for performance, 

or more accurately, 

empty manuscript paper 

you can use 

to overlay 

a landscape onto, 

assigning pitches and duration 

to randomness itself, 

putting tone-

deaf reality 

on a clef. 

3.

A poem is a handbill 

for the ambient soul—

a greeting card sent 

by thought 

to confusion—

an afterword 

on sentiment—

propaganda 

for more poems. 

4.

Poetry is a fire theft—

a Promethean provocation 

of the Logos in words, 

like Merriam-Webster 

defining what love is, 

or when the White Star Line 

called the Titanic 

"unsinkable."

5.

A poem is a disorder—

a disease 

you can catch, 

the prick of each enjambment 

causing inflammation, 

and each 

stanza, a mobile

ICU tent, built 

to quarantine the infection 

of an encephalitic virus 

which, for a few dozen seconds, 

may make your death 

seem more—not less— 

unthinkable.

THIRD COMING

Hate to say it, but Yeats 

had too much 

and not enough 

imagination. Why just one 

rough beast, for instance, 

slouching up the main street's 

verge—why not 

a million? Perhaps even 

a billion 

running interference, 

pressing in 

from the edges? 

Or worse yet: not even 

"pressing," since it's 

nothing so agentic, and 

therefore, not a villain? 

What if trillions 

upon trillions of dis-

interested bits—not 

Satan's digital minions 

breeching our cyber-

Utopia's privacy hedges, 

but uncountable, unknowable, 

ineffable battalions 

of inane stochastic parrots 

built to mimic us 

to pieces—start to weigh 

down all the branches

and block said-Utopian 

sunlight's path, along with 

all its oxygen—not to mention, 

due to heat- and brain-death, 

any thoughts at all—

coherent or poetic—

re. said-Utopian citizens' strategy 

for an exit?

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

When have you ever 

done anything 

for the first time? 

Can you strike an unheard 

chord on an even-

tempered keyboard, 

or hit a fresh 

vein in a tapped-

out mine? 

I say: imitation 

is not flattery but 

mandatory;

iteration, less theft 

than emphasis—a frictionless 

way to underline. 

I say:

those whose ambition 

is "make it again"

may yet build ships 

to Byzantium 

out of repetition, 

but those who admonish 

"make it new" 

are just as sure 

to lose next month's 

rent check to 

fantasy football. 

I say: to plagiarize your 

soul's last will 

without a single citation;

to rebroadcast thoughts

in syndication

without getting caught;

to mix quotes of the Greats 

without the need to pay 

their estates a dime—

perhaps that 

is art's one and 

only perfect crime. 

NEWBORN PRAYER

Please, let grief 

be those 

tiny metal claws 

which show-

off exquisitely 

the facets of her being—

a prong setting, 

built 

to silhouette 

her diamond 

of delight. 

NONCONSENSUAL

The problem is that 

it happens too fast 

to make any 

sense of it, so each day, 

you forget

the way morning light, 

so golden and kind 

makes the most 

vulgar things 

sing hymns—

highlighting each 

branching vein 

on each leaf

and both quickening 

and slowing time, 

til the past 

and its future 

don't just harmonize 

but practically seem 

to sing in one voice—

such wizardry as this

take the piss 

on forever,

and your soul (unbeknownst 

to you, of course)

again picks mortality 

as the vastly 

superior choice. 

THE GOD OF TRUTH

          Sometimes we have to settle for mere 

          opinions or guesswork, but the god of truth 

          is better served by attendant deities such as 

          reason, justification, and objectivity. 

               —Simon Blackburn, On Truth 

The truth about truth 

is that the truth is 

no divinity; 

it's more like a manic 

pixie in a rom-com. 

We assume it's enough 

to seek it—

to discover it, but 

in practice, we often must 

court and humor;

we must take it 

on fabulous trips with 

our Christmas bonus; 

we must call it 

"god" or "goddess;" we must  

placate and cajole.

And even so, 

capricious as it is, 

we know 

it might freak out 

or ditch us at any moment—

and before it hops 

on to the back 

of the softail 

with our idiot rival 

who lives down the hall, 

the spiteful truth 

might tell us 

it hopes we slit our wrists, 

or that it's better 

off without us—so 

don't bother to call. 

THROWING ROCKS IN LAKE MICHIGAN

Now, as back then, I 

cannot resist (albeit 

with slightly 

longer pauses 

to consider)—

as a kid, to show it 

I really existed; 

to displace with a smack 

the near-infinite 

by a little bit. 

As a man, to smirk 

at the so-called effects

of my causes—not 

to cause at all, 

in fact, but just 

to convince myself 

I'm still that kid. 

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD

I swear—the older 

you get, the more you 

can't remember, 

but far worse 

than that, the more 

you can't forget. 

It's true; it's 

a bitch. But 

most galling of all 

is how, one day 

when it's nice out,  

you find yourself 

sitting on a bench,

and just watching 

the grass ripple

tricks you into admitting

that the litany 

of your grievances

is at best 

a little 

fusillade of birdshit 

on the otherwise- 

serviceable monument 

which grace 

had commissioned—

and then 

graciousness built—

and then 

forbearance gave 

as a gift 

to existence. 

APOLOGIA

Forever and ever,

from the seraphs 

in the sons

to the demons

in their fathers: 

memory 

is an ulcer—

a hereditary 

lesion. We burn 

where you spit; 

we hurt 

since you were. 

BROWN MOTH

Light worshiper, fellow 

obsessive, 

indentured servant 

of the moon—

how like its surface 

is your chevron body: 

color of the unnoticed, striped 

with the mute button,

dirtied with dust—

your alien eyes 

are consumed 

with the burning 

reflections of grayed fires 

which must look

as enduring

as your mania  

seems stymied by windows 

to us.

ENNEAGRAM 4

The sun 

must be a very 

cruel and narcissistic man 

to be 

so beautiful, so needed—

and to know it—but, 

under pain 

of blindness, still 

prohibit us from staring. 

INCANTATION FOR THE LOST GENERATION

If I could, I would go back there

to kiss the creases 

and clefts of your injuries—

tell you 

I'm sorry 

you were disallowed 

to put your mouth 

around your anger

or your meager joy. 

But,

less for the stern spirit 

than the weeping maid 

inside you 

that drives all of us, I wish

above all to tell you this: 

it is better by far, old man, 

to be defeated 

than destroyed, 

and anyone 

who will not let go 

of a fish 

is an idiot—it's 

just a goddamned fish. 

WHY WE DANCE

Because motion 

and parallax 

are confusing  

to the senses—

the omnipotent synthesis 

of centripetal gravity

must couple 

with inertia's 

brute imperative 

and cancel, tricking us

into forgetting 

at the chorus

that someday, "we"

will no longer be.

JUST SAYING

It's good 

for the conscience 

to admit 

you'd been wrong—

edifying 

to allow, for instance, 

that spring 

should have been called 

the changing of the leaves—

not fall—

if only its first 

observers hadn't been 

cowed by trembling 

shades of green 

never named 

for never seen—

stupefied (since we're 

being honest)

into truth-

ful silence.  

POEMS ARE HOLES

Sotto voce missive 

from the little distant 

tackhammering woodpeckers: 

often, you must drill 

before the reason 

will appear; 

it takes practice, not precision 

to make swiss 

cheese out of the hidden—

hunger, not fulfillment 

to think of whispering 

for emphasis, 

to make the unlistenable 

something to hear. 

MILLENNIAL PAUSE V. THE GEN Z STARE

By the way the sun 

after 4pm 

starts to shamble 

through your window 

like some slack Byronic hero 

and ooze through the green glass 

bottles littering your shelf

like an afternoon drunk 

still too numb to feel shame,

you can tell 

there's something archetypal 

happening here,

but unlike 

those swashbuckling 

try-hard romantics,

you wouldn't dare try 

to give it a name. 

OFF-THE-SHELF

Perversely, the wrongest 

thing of them all 

is the reassuring tedium 

of grief's routine;

the TV procedural 

of nullifying feeling—

not the insanity, 

the mundanity of loss.

Everyday  

as the mouthfeel 

of dry toast 

and lunch meat—

that Wonder bread 

and Butterball taste 

of their goneness. 

NEVER FAILS

Every morning, walking 

in silence, when the ache 

of my plainness seems 

to flare up anew, 

that same tawny female 

cardinal harkens, with the crest 

of her head 

and the shape of her tune

arcing to form 

an arrow pointing—

like the flame of a candle

to show me what to do. 

I can only surmise

that the meekest among us 

might be the bearers, 

not of burdens, but pardons—

for who would have guessed 

such a small tongue of light 

could lick away such 

a preponderance of darkness? 

IMPROVED TEXT FOR THE INSIDE OF A BIRTHDAY CARD

Cut down your family tree;

make kindling 

out of memory,

because each day you live

will demand the sacrifice 

of at least one small defeat. 

This is not the feeling, 

of course; these are just the words 

that the feeling might be trapped in:

in order to consider 

the trackless ocean, it helps

to be a speck of flotsam—

just like to ponder 

the mystery of your childhood, 

you have to be a grownup. 

But the last thing on Earth 

you will learn 

before you leave it, 

is that everything 

you finally know

will have to be forgotten.

MISSIVE

The reddest 

cardinal in the greenest 

fern tree

as the sun 

is dragged, kicking 

and screaming toward the west;

a streak of geese
whose strident hollers seem 

to ricochet

off every rain-

quickened building 
and slickened city street;

just watching light
as it falls 

through colored glass

and lands 

with a glimmer on 

drab vestibule carpeting—

Alleluia, goes the only 

lyric in the hymnal, who 

would have guessed? 

Sometimes, it's like 

you get paid 

to be impressed. Once 

or twice, what you want

and what you need 

are the same thing.

NEW WAVE

All you need

is love, they said—

and,

as the Earth's 

rotation slows, one might

hasten to add—

supposing 

that the wolves 

have been recently fed. 

MISE-EN-SCÈNE

What if time 

wasn't time, 

but the flow of information 

from the five starving senses

to a full-

to-bursting mind? 

And space, 

the last few stage flats 

of an off-broadway production 

that has already been shut down 

which have yet to be 

rolled away?

What would that 

suggest about the cost

of doing business? 

What would that say

about the price 

of our admission

when we're bitter 

enough to part 

with our credulity, 

but still 

willing enough 

to pay? 

WRITING PROMPT

Dreamt I went 

to a workshop taught

by my reflection. 

He said, in order to be a poet, 

you must ask

the right questions.

What is nostalgia? 

I cautiously invited.

All the memories, he replied, 

with none 

of the hindsight. 

What's imagination? 

I solicited next.

Some hoodoo hex; 

an atomic pile, throwing off 

art like radiation.

what is this purgatory 

where we reside?

Simply a purging 

through repetition, he sighed. 

What then, is heaven?

I stammered, losing patience.

That which lies 

all the time 

outside your vision. 

MODUS PONENS

If lies 

make baby 

Jesus cry, 

what would 

make him 

laugh—the truth?

Would shyness 

soothe? Or 

verbal abuse? 

Mirth is not 

a thing 

to cling too

tightly to, 

anyway, I think 

he'd say. Why, 

seems like just 

the other day 

his friends

ignored him 

til he cried. Then 

flattered him 

until he puked. 

And lastly

told him: if P, 

then Q; if on

our side, then 

crucified. 

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Take it from the grubby 

thirsty sparrows 

singing something 

very like A

Pirate's Life For Me

as they stake their 

claim on the fat 

gems of rain

which are caught 

in wild magenta nets 

of redbud blossoms 

that weren't so much as 

hinted at yesterday:

in the forest, 

as elsewhere, hallowed be 

consistency's name—

and yet, the proudest 

and most 

illustrious histories 

are easily

the shortest. 

LILAC

Something a little

like florets 

of bent light

suspended 

in rainwater 

and left out 

to steep for one 

long pensive night,

the odor of which 

might only be unfurling 

more and more 

slowly the mellower 

you get. 

THEODICY

The bright side is:

god's hands 

are never tied—

and his cuticles are clean

as clean can be.

But unfortunately, 

"arm's length"

just about describes 

how far apart they are—

and of course, 

those hands are you 

and me. 

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ANTIPODES

Angel choirs 

are trifling

fictions—confections 

dressed in marzipan, 

reciting loud

flights of juvenilia; 

what's truly 

impressive is 

one good man—

that humble antithesis 

of the proud

nude emperor, 

none see him standing 

silent before 

the zealous crowd 

in all his 

invisible regalia. 

INKBLOT

Eyes closed

and dreaming, I 

can almost see 

the catastrophe that's 

trapped inside of me—

desperate to flee 

his prison's ship's 

emergency, and so

pounding his palms 

against the insides 

of my eyelids. 

Get help, he insists; 

don't get distracted 

by dumb hunger;

or at least, get pissed- 

off enough 

at the state of affairs 

to make a wish 

to trade places with 

your less egregious half.

Then I wake 

with a gasp, but it's all

impossible to parse—

pale counterfeits 

at best—like butterflies 

under glass,

or the flickering 

necrotic shadows 

trailing-out grotesque 

behind the tree limbs 

of reality 

in the black- 

and-white kaleidoscope 

of storm clouds and moonlight—

and all I can think is 

am I saying this right? 

 

CHANGE MY MIND

So there's a violent cataclysm—

a pulverizing nothing  

pulsing away

at the galaxy's center.

So there's a shivering, 

unrepentant caterpillar 

chewing a hole 

in your prom night corsage.

What is courage 

but fear acknowledged? 

What's the fire of hell 

but god's love—rejected? 

To be wounded is

to be blessed,

but even that's 

too obvious. 

When pressed,  

to affirm all the beauty 

and the horror 

with a smile—

to be content 

to have a wasted

supernova 

for a soul—now that 

should keep your fact-

checkers busy 

and employed—at least

for a little while.

APOSTROPHE

O, dancing shafts 

of April light;

o, contagious gusts 

of bright blithe wind;

o, silvery ghosts 

of sighing rain; o, oval

of repetition, over 

and again:  

please forgive 

this outdated mode 

of address;

please forget 

the specificity of things.

Use these lexical bits 

of straw and grass 

to feather me a nest; 

weave me a fence 

to pen in my doubt; 

o, do your best

to grow me a heart 

that is jacketed 

in the genius 

of a diamond—that is, 

harder 

than the land 

which surrounds it, yet 

even more 

delicately faceted. 

NO POEM TODAY

O blessed silver-

lake mirror 

of morning—

o tulips, delicate, 

soft, and diffuse,

breathing in 

small beads 

of opalescent water 

and breathing out 

the inchoate language 

of spring—

please put this poet

in his place 

for a change;

put him 

to some better use

than these eager young 

sparrows' peckish 

chirping to distraction, 

as if trying to rustle 

up the perfect 

word for le mot juste. 

COLOR IS THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

Such common 

pigeons, the color 

of storm clouds—

but such

iridescent necks,

like pearls of new rain.

You could do worse, 

they seem to claim,

than the world 

at its absolute peak  

of nonplussed. 

Just you take 

a tip from us: 

make a Dadaist plan 

to be less profound. 

Say something blue; 

do something 

round; be 

as you seem. If you can 

speak, why 

wouldn't you? 

TALISMAN

In the freshening air 

of silent twilight—that abyss 

into which all our soiled 

yesterdays blow—

each squirrel 

perched on his pole like 

a sentinel—like the king of all 

the untold animal species;

and each dove, a bust 

of Palace on her throne,

sitting naked and noble 

in her nest of maple branches; 

and me 

at the window, trying 

to let the day go. 

C'est la vie.

Comme ci, comme ça.

Sig transit gloria mundi.

Que sera, sera.

Those are things my 

old proponents 

used to say. But 

to give a thing away, 

that must mean I 

used to own it. 

RECAPITULATION

Fierce first days of April 

always seem to want 

to foment the start of something 

rather rowdier than holy;

from our bone-

dry indoor hiding places, 

even we change-averse conservatives 

cannot keep from staring 

at all of the rioting 

magnolias.

OPENING DAY

How little we understand, 

for how rough 

is the draft

at the end of the month 

of March? It's almost 

simple math: 

you tell April 

what your plan is, 

and she tries not to laugh. 

A silent witness to herself 

with no one else to tell, 

and patient and calm 

as the inside 

of a church bell, 

her grim blades of rain 

extricate spiders 

from their spouts

so the sun that has been hidden 

away in all things all along 

can come out. 

LIFE'S WORK:

Fix this.

RADICALIZED

When I hear, 

up in sun-

sizzled buds 

of vermilion, 

the delirious grackles' 

strident singing—

out of hunger, 

out of lust, 

out of anger 

and mistrust—

about how nothing 

has been known 

that hasn't also once 

been lost, 

I'm reminded 

of an unfound time—

before my avian 

soul was caught, 

dismembered, 

and eaten 

by the fox 

of obedience—

when I knew 

life on Earth 

was a circumference-

less circle; 

every cry was urgent 

at its infinite center—but 

none of them was 

controversial. 

MERCY COUCH

Unclear how, 

but I suppose I need

to thank heaven 

for that first muzzy 

beat of slow tempo 

after waking up—

when I know 

for a fact that I've 

turned up again

but still am not 

sure what 

to worry about. 

POSSIBILITIES

What is it, I wonder,

about each morning's fresh 

mellow tide of hunches

that makes us forget 

about the fallow 

way each day must end?

The way lovestruck 

birds risk blatant overtures 

in still-bare branches

or the frisky wind 

that rolls disenchanted

boxes down alleys everywhere

must serve as narcotic slivers 

to the same hand that doles 

out nightly dread; 

for a fleeting moment, 

last evening's shouts of panic 

melt into golden tender air, 

and the living there is easy 

in the summer 

in our heads. 

FLING

For now, I have decided 

that the best things in life 

are gratis, yes, 

but also disputable; 

like a coquettish 

cardinal swinging 

branch to branch 

and tree to tree, 

I too might be free 

to change my mind 

endlessly—

and the song I sing 

may sound 

unbound, but only 

because it is 

mutable. 

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

Even after 

that sugar rush crash 

of delphic erudition,

no one 

thinks to ask

the most selfish question: 

whence 

these sallow cocoons 

of flesh—why 

would God want 

to obscure his best 

butterflies? 

GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH

Like the silence 

between moans, 

or like reflux 

in the night, 

conviction hits us 

in the gut. 

I feel it in my bones, 

we say—

or, I know that 

in my heart—

because certainty

is selfish—

by which I 

mean: it lives 

inside us. 

Whereas doubt, 

thank goodness, is 

a migratory process, 

a striking out 

for parts unknown. 

We suspect 

it underlies us 

when in fact it 

wouldn't touch us 

with a ten foot pole. 

Like spit 

or a shout, 

it was really only built 

to burst 

from our mouths, 

then bolt 

like hell for its 

actual home. 

IDENTITY POLITIC

As an object in space 

may be extended 

through many different 

time dimensions 

without every really "belonging"

to any of them,

so "i" 

is a shibboleth, 

a torture device 

of convenience, 

a lever used to prod 

parity into abeyance—

better yet: 

a clever code 

used to bootstrap 

the rest of you 

into continuing its 

sentence.

Meanwhile, the past 

and the present 

are your two 

divorced parents:

divisive 

but still a little 

too significant—

indispensable 

to your very 

survival, in fact—

yet acutely 

and instructively  

unwilling 

or unable 

to even so much as 

coexist. 

GHOST STORY

When it comes to the next life, 

half-seen is only 

half-believed; 

if every uninterrupted 

second of our lives 

was an object 

infatuated with its 

image in the mirror—

in other words, its redoubled

but left-handed opposite—

then what does that say 

about changing 

the subject? 

*

To simply begin again 

would seem 

more expedient 

than an excess of oblivion.

But 

knowledge and its limits 

are provisional pairs 

of binary digits. 

A buyer's remorse code, 

held "in contempt" 

of what? 

*

Take this mute testimony 

of branches, for instance, 

first puncturing, then devouring 

every color on the horizon: 

less like the rattling chains 

of some dolorous phantom

than the chains of coincidence 

and fate we get caught in—

tangled, we say

when we're lucky enough, but 

strangled the one time

we're not. 

AFTER THE SNOW LEAVES

land 

battered bare

like a skeleton—

like a picked-

clean rib cage: empty, 

shrunken, brittle, frivolous—

like a blank landscape 

painting in which 

anything can happen—

like a camouflaged

cat that feels 

stealthily superior 

 

while assiduously licking 

her claws clean 

and the tips of every tooth—

like the infinite grandeur 

of a mountaintop view 

getting compressed until 

whatever is left 

resembles blandness—

and the truth. 

FOR THE Nth TIME

As if brand new 

to the fierce 

wild angles 

and delirious 

verve of their 

iridescent bodies, 

hordes of starlings 

have begun 

to swarm the branches 

of the bare tulip 

poplar trees 

every afternoon 

to flap and gossip 

in madcap anticipation 

of the new season. 

For a moment, there is 

not a scrap of silence 

or of room;

then, the spell breaks, 

and the murmuration 

dissipates

as the world at large 

exhales, relaxes, 

and moves on, 

forgetting 

for the nth time, as it 

mercifully must, 

that there's still so many 

small gods at large 

on the planet—

and yet 

so little heaven. 

CONFESSION

To the tire-

marked rat corpse, 

lying half-squashed 

in the pockmarked 

asphalt of the alley's 

left wheel rut: 

yes, of course 

I hope the rain comes 

to flush you well away—

but still I can't 

wish that you didn't 

exist. 

After all, 

to whom else but you 

is it safe to confess 

all my worst 

bents and most 

hideous secrets?

The ways I've been 

callous or raised 

vindictive fists—

or worse, how I've been 

in no rush 

to make change? 

I am not proud 

of this, but what 

can I say?

The slow road to hell 

is long, but it's paved. 

And at least 

until now, I've had 

the sense to get out 

of faster traffic's way. 

CHRISTENING

We label the chutes 

and bulbs now emerging 

as aconite,

snow drop,

crocus,

or primrose—

as if it profited us 

to designate discretely 

the preludes 

to this end of repose 

as these blind and half-starved 

harbingers of spring.

But how much more

would be gained, I wonder, 

if we just let that hunger rage 

in our wonder 

and called these new feelings 

by their actual names? 

SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES

"Get with the program,"

we like to say—

as if joining the story 

already in progress—

however nebulous, 

humdrum, or rotten—

would align us 

with its future twists 

and keep us safe 

from being forgotten. 

*

There's a right way 

and a wrong way 

to get with the winning team. 

You can urge on 

your own undoing 

like a Sophocles chorus, 

or fly underneath 

the swarming angels 

of your doom, 

then sink 

to the bottom, try to 

quorum-sense the storm.

*

In the best case, 

death is a lot 

like sleep: 

less a shorting out 

of focus 

than a broadening 

of attention—

a late-

in-the-third-act 

realization 

and acceptance of that

which has 

already happened. 

WHEREAS

Vis-à-vis

our tendency to cling: 

define "nostalgia" 

as that pillow of your past 

without the suffocating weight 

of all of its minutiae. 

* 

If it hurts you, 

then it's matter; 

if not, it's 

information—

whereas:

everything in between 

is just empty space, 

and everything outside it 

is just idle 

speculation. 

*

Re: the mass 

hysteria of crowds, 

be careful

what you say 

you don't believe in, 

for hope is not one—

but many little gods, 

still so new at this 

they don't want to be 

found out. 

FRAMING DEVICES

At one certain point, 

everyone living 

has precisely 

the same amount of past 

as future. 

For this moment only, 

they no longer need to walk, 

to count, to listen;

there is nowhere to go—

they are home. 

*

Quick question—

how many descriptors 

does it take 

to denote 

an individual? 

How many individual birds 

make a pair?

and how many pairs make 

a difference? 

*

Behind each eyelid, 

there's a small, tidy room 

being held 

in reserve 

for "you." 

*

The beginning of love 

is sympathy for another, 

but the end of love 

is pity. 

How can this be?

The holy trinity was made 

when two lovers 

walked together on the shore 

and were followed 

by the gaze 

of a third-

person narrator. 

*

The structure of sentences 

like those above 

has conditioned each of us 

to value most that 

which we expect 

to see next. 

In just the same way, 

reverberation teaches 

that every word 

which comes to us 

has already been said 

at least once. 

DIAGNOSTIC

The results are in—

inside me, there's a knotted fist 

of string 

where the beginnings 

and endings 

of things ought to be—

long twisted tangles 

of some equally inaccessible 

near and far, 

some tension 

that's connected to, but doesn't 

end with me 

and the start of which has 

always been 

somewhere else entirely. 

*

I used to be more 

exact than this, 

but that was before I knew

letters and numbers.

Now, every frightened thought 

is less a mandate 

than a blundered attempt 

at a revolution—

which is 

to say: half senseless 

directionless, 

nonproductive motion

and half little battle 

for the truth 

of some previous-

ly governable situation. 

PASSING FAIR

What is there left 

to complain about now? 

Will the dead still need the living 

like the living 

need the dead? 

Has the gist of our conviction 

has been weighed down 

by old inference yet?

By way of answers, 

here comes spring again—

all penitent mallards 

wing north 

for the season 

and fingers of rain 

massage moss 

from dead tree trunks.

Things soften, then streamline; 

so certain, they're 

redundant.

Life in such times is 

tedium refined;

ease 

that's insistent;

reiteration 

with a difference. 

OLD HAND

There is, in this life,

a kind of strangeness 

so pervasive as to turn 

innocuous—

an eerie glory 

so often repeated 

that, even in its transience, 

it doesn't bear hoarding. 

Picture the proverbial 

overflowing bowlful 

of tropical citrus 

on a Midwestern table—

and tell me

we're not experts

at gorging 

on the foreign 

while ignoring 

the incongruous. 

MARCH MADNESS

Day by slowly 

swelling day, a collective fever 

becomes visible 

as the bashful sun 

tickles baubles of frost 

from the mud-mottled grass

and the geese overhead 

blare back northward 

in a huff. 

With spring still little more 

than an R.E.M. dream,

little sounds appealing  

in the rawness 

of wind and spent-

matchstick look of lawns—

but even though 

that pulpit-crowed hope

of resurrection still feels risible, 

we have to admit, 

it's a joy 

just to realize 

even our muddy, most 

juvenile feelings. 

LATE FRAGMENT OF STEPHEN DEDALUS

Dreamt I was love's 

last living vampire; 

loneliness 

was my familiar—

but for once, my lust 

and your concern came 

teetering back into 

phase with each other. 

As I opened my mouth 

to bare my teeth 

and claim consubstantiality 

of words and reality, 

your lips—which were wet 

and pressed close enough 

to, at least temporarily, 

shut mine up—

felt like not so much 

of a big deal by contrast, 

and, as such, were 

all the sweeter. 

 

LET'S FACE IT

We love to hurt 

the way a baby loves 

to look around 

after it has 

just fallen down 

to make sure its mother is 

paying attention. 

*

Our preferred form 

of diversion 

is a pleasure 

deferred—

a day 

without timestamps;

a poem 

without all the troublesome 

words;

a "referred" pain 

as an analgesic 

substitute for the real thing.

("Better them 

than us," we exclaim.)

We like our 

soft feelings

like we like our hard truths: 

registered across town 

in seedy hotel rooms

under nom de plumes. 

*

We are not into 

"pushing the easy button."

We are into regretting 

easy buttons don't exist. 

TIME OUT OF MIND

                   —after Emily Dickinson 

"Forever," we've been 

told, "is composed of nows,"

but unfortunately, now 

is also flooded 

with forevers—

and the only way 

we know of to endeavor 

to cross over 

from one specious present 

to the ill-defined next is 

to caulk the twin wagons 

of hope and regret 

and attempt to ford

(via brute summation) 

the biblical river

of pleasure-

cum-pain 

which has burst the cheap 

dam of this 

same time and place 

and laid waste 

to that oasis from horizon 

to horizon.

But the hell of it is:

the place to which we 

think we might escape 

is just another maddeningly

familiar-looking junction 

between that which can 

neither be found 

nor forgotten.

DISPUTED ZONE

Even though you've doubtless 

come here for 

a respite from the storm, 

I am sorry 

to say that you've been 

misinformed; 

there's a despot 

in the white space 

and guerillas 

at the margins.

There are sergeants 

drilling crackpot logic

and halftracks of gibberish 

and incoherence 

patrolling with menace 

the perimeters of this— 

and every other poem. 

From the epics of Homer 

to the white chickens 

of the Imagists, 

it's shelter, some direction, 

or a mantra you're after, 

but the truth is 

it's widdershins 

the moment you enter—

and you hold no cards 

within these borders. 

Consider, dear reader, 

the predicament you're in. 

FINAL SOLILOQUY OF THE INTERIOR EX-PARAMOUR

In more ways than one, 

your face is 

like the moon. 

But never mind 

the milkwhite 

beauty of its cheeks

or the taut graceful curve 

of their bones; 

I have seen, unbidden,

the way it goes 

through phases 

to keep a ruined 

and dark side hidden—

and, having zoomed 

out to widen 

my view, how it shines 

with a light 

that is not its own. 

KEEP 'EM COMING

Despite the enormity 

of what or who 

we've lost, 

clouds 

out of nowhere 

fledge and caper; 

they swell and cleave

and bud and splatter 

with all the deathless disregard 

of immaculate 

sprites for whom beauty 

and whimsy 

are all 

that matters—but 

have no cost. 

How else would you explain 

our utter failure 

to prepare—even

to believe 

that the worst has 

come for us? 

ABSTRACTION

For some 

time now, sallow light 

on the spring/winter border 

has been blanching all those

photos hung too close 

to the window. 

The scene might read 

as tragic to the momentary 

witness, but 

in the relentless eternity 

of now, to temper

is a kindness; 

you can look at the past 

as if through stained 

cathedral glass—that is, 

without wincing 

at all the details, or facing-

off with facts. 

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING

A Pentecost of pigeons 

perched in rows on 

rolling fence posts 

is spelling out a message 

just for you in 

Morse code. 

It isn't a prediction 

of the storm 

before it happens,

or a forecast 

of how many breaths 

you have left;

it's the eerie invocation 

of the purpose 

of The Random—

of a sharp exhalation 

and a little vague wind, 

in the long run, amounting 

to the very same thing.

This is what passes for 

excoriating doom,

its communique 

telescoping 

over the horizon:

if you feared you'd be 

hounded by fate 

to ruination, the bad news 

is good news—you will 

get there 

on your own. 

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

From the battered ground, 

stark crocus tips poke 

like licked fingers 

raised, in their near-

comic seriousness, 

to test the direction 

of the wind 

and feel around 

(a little dubious) 

for what sincerity 

may exist in this 

latest thaw.

Despite last year's flowering 

coming to nothing 

and the daffodils' trumpets 

falling silent—

then just falling—

they are eager as gamblers  

for their damnable chance

not to bask 

in the moral of the story 

or the Easy Street Kingdom 

of the power and the glory—

not for permanence, or 

to put it all behind them—

but only 

for balance—

only

to begin again. 

ON SECOND THOUGHT,

in this spherical geometry, 

a straight line 

is a lie—

is actually a slight smile 

or sneer; 

it may even 

intersect itself 

after a while. 

For Euclid, 

this was heresy. 

To be emissary 

of the kingdom 

and still be allowed to see it—

that is just

too much. 

It's a beatitude to be 

so near 

to the truth 

and not be allowed 

to touch it. 

*

I'd have to say 

it's rather odd, but, 

during one certain hour of the morning, 

the mind is a vacant lot; 

the few hawks 

that drift high above 

would have to be 

its thoughts. 

The arbitrary relation 

of the sign to the signified—

ominous, 

but not urgent;

eerie, but benign;

lifeless, and so 

deathless—maybe that

was god.

TALKING TO MYSELF

"What is there left

to say?" I mutter;

existence 

is incurrence 

of impression (viz: 

of debt).

*

A bit 

far-fetched, but it 

feels good 

to be called 

as material witness 

to the voiceless obsessed; 

to next spring 

and last winter 

colliding with each other 

and hopscotching birds 

that seem to disappear 

around the corner 

of the Earth; 

to the hide 

and seek 

of rivulets 

which traipse 

through mud 

like hieroglyphs. 

There is always something 

new to read, however 

crude or tenuous. 

No wonder 

this attention can 

never be spent;

this duty to desire 

can never be absented; 

this ache to ask 

questions can never

be addressed. 

THE DEFENSE RESTS

At this point, God 

must be 

absolute-

ly sick of me 

telling him 

all about the sparrows 

and trees.

What did you think 

you were doing? 

he'd say. 

I'd say: it takes a lot 

of faith 

to just describe 

the things you come upon 

in a prosaic 

way when one 

leaf shot-through 

with dawn sun 

is staggering 

enough to 

make you scream—what 

is anything?

THE NAME OF THE GAME

We like to think 

affection will make

absence shrink away,

but the consequence 

of tenderness is never 

abolition. Love works 

more like a caretaker—

an animal husband 

to savage distance; 

it does not kill or 

outlaw, just declaws 

our separation; 

for the sake 

of preservation it 

succors the herd—first

it feeds, then trains 

and breeds it. In a word: 

domestication. 

A SUBURBAN CONJURING

From the hedges
on the banks of the muddy
Dunkin’ drive-thru,

the sparrows chanting
“come and get it”

with a hunger
for spring rains, not donut-
combo breakfasts—

for locusts 

and wild honey, in fact; 

not that they 

could ever show it.

but forget about baptism 

by water, or coffee 

in the courtyard 

of the shopping plaza,

and never mind 

the incantations

carved in the cliffs 

of the distant auto mall:

"Good credit, 

bad credit,
no credit?" Hell,

if you were really getting
life right, you
wouldn’t even know it.

CATALYST

It sounds so 

innocuous 

when you say it 

like this: 

our prehistoric 

antecedents—

those eagerest primitive 

pieces of us—

were thermodynamic 

processes, 

catabolic molecules, made 

to break down acceleration; 

they ate up time 

and distances 

and breathed out rates 

of change

in increasingly warm 

and rapid waves, til 

the great grid of tireless 

innovation caught fire—

then the tires 

of the car—

then the back seat—

then the kids. 

CREATION MYTH

Particles 

of astonishment 

flood the gap between 

"I" and "am." 

Matter 

and its anti-; 

positivity 

and its pre-

requisite opposite, 

which must, as a rule, 

repel one another—yet 

here we all 

sit anyway, 

casual as Friday,

comfy as ever. 

*

Still bearing the stigmata 

of such deliberate precision, 

keen pithy snatches 

of some meditation mantra 

play around the collective 

nouns that we've 

come to call our faces, 

making them gorgeous 

as fractal images:

matrices 

of galaxies, say;

or heaventree heads 

of Roman-

esco broccoli?

*

We go forth 

and name things

to know 

where we stand. 

We shake things up 

and leave the house 

for the sake 

of getting back. 

this is not 

profundity—this is 

just its traces. 

CRUELTY REFINES

On the subject of tough love, 

much to hear this 

time of year 

from the mute cold throats 

of the rough 

fruitless bushes 

which crouch low 

and hold their ragged 

breath in the wind 

while a whole mess 

of sparrows—all 

hunger pangs and urges—

whinges now for shelter 

and sugar 

in their branches: 

never mind 

what "speaks to you." 

It's all about what could—

but chooses 

not to. 

VOICE LESSON

As if any further 

proof was needed 

that truth and beauty 

come in particles 

and waves—

rough but discrete 

and mercifully light, 

a song behaves

like a handy palliative 

used to modulate 

one's tolerance to life—

whereas 

singing itself 

is a very different catalyst; 

like a whittling knife 

to basswood, it's the honing 

of routine 

through rigorous daily 

practice

to a thing that feels 

sleek, but looks 

preposterous. 

DEUS EX MACHINA

The Terminator 

who learned to cry 

was right:

the best anti-virus 

protection from 

sadness is 

pattern recognition—

this 

is like that; 

stolidity 

like blankness; 

detachment, right 

next door 

to madness. 

*

Wherefore this need 

to triangulate 

emotion? 

Our first response 

to the threat 

of overbalance is 

not 

to respond—

but to find someone 

to show. 

*

Note to future-self: 

when you finally 

rub up against 

the Great Artifice, 

be sure to save 

the last of those three wishes 

for meta-

significance. 

THE PLOT

First, you learn 

that you 

are someone—

front 

and center, bright 

eyes shining; 

then, you learn that you 

are not—you run 

together, wander off; 

last, you learn 

it was never 

about you—all depth 

collapses, 

and the plot 

strands clot; 

the divinely un-

divided scoffs 

at what went rhyming

with "auspicious"

in the sticks—those 

trite seconds 

and gauche minutes—

the conceit 

was just a matter, 

not 

of time, but 

of timing. 

SECOND PLACE

Heaven is distinguished 

from psychosis

by its paleness. Whereas 

even the bleakest, 

snow-blank 

day in February 

is all shot through 

with stinging 

vivid filaments of memory 

and the richness of the longing 

for the sideways 

glance of spring—

the end of the show, 

where the ache 

is extinguished 

is a blank soundstage, 

stripped of its old 

garish game show sets

and backlit 

by the weakest dangling 

strands of winking bulbs—

as if the antidote to depression 

and anxiety was 

a kind of blindness; 

as if the runner-

up prize, 

so long denied, 

was an end to irritation 

and negation of striving; 

as if going nowhere 

and doing nothing 

were the grand culmination 

of yearning for something.  

DAN SMART POEM

A set of instructions 

for decoding instructions; 

identical rhyme 

to give surfeit 

some zing. 

Mobile-home stanzas 

in trailer-park columns;

contrition 

as antidote to hubris 

and shame. 

Of course: rhythm 

as instrument, 

not the song 

that it's singing; 

as longing 

without referent;

as syntax, not diction.

And last: the tragedy 

of slant rhyme 

to overgraze

pure rhyme's commons, 

to contain 

the seeds of its 

own destruction 

while retaining 

some plausible 

deniability of same. 

STAINED GLASS

Clean cry of the newborn

like a crack 

in the face, 

fracturing pure lightness 

into arches, transoms, colonnades—

into limitless 

fragile burnished 

matrices of porches,

all winking 

in midair their 

ambiguous understanding 

of absentia-

cum-grace. 

ROAD TO RUIN

Is it any 

wonder that 

things fall apart

when, simply 

by reacting, we deconstruct 

the past—or worse 

yet: simply by thinking, 

we kick 

the future's ass? 

Picture layer 

upon layer 

of anger, guilt, resentment 

laid down like shellac, like 

goose grease, 

like black ice

to slicken the surface—but 

on the fence-less precipice 

of what? 

Is it any wonder 

the mind's terrain is 

so precarious? 

To get out of our head 

is hazardous 

enough, but 

it's twice 

as far—twice as dangerous 

to get back. 

PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIES

Tell the truth and 

shame the devil: 

"let me just get my 

thoughts in order" 

means 

privileging one 

above all others. 

*

Can you pick out 

the savior 

on the cross 

from the other two actors, 

hired to re-enact 

our anger? 

"Will the real necromancer 

please stand up 

and roll away 

the stone, 

then come 

for our brains?!" 

*

We "weren't there" 

in scare quotes

sounds so benign,

sounds close enough 

for jazz—

close as 

innocence

and indifference, 

which

don't strictly 

rhyme—but 

kind of? 

CONSOLATION

Just to rise 

each day 

is a risk, 

but the carrot 

on that stick—

slender though it is—

is that each next 

try might go five 

percent better. 

And you never 

know: eventually, 

you might wake 

without fear; 

you might complete 

that thousand-piece 

puzzle that is 

your life; 

before it's too late, 

you may glimpse 

the picture, and 

let's face it: 

you'd kill 

for the chance 

to see, at the last, 

what it is 

you were and 

die entire. 

COMPASSION PUMPS

Sympathy does not 

simply sit around 

and wait; 

in fact, it acts 

more like 

a chaos agent—

a narrative tornado 

punting newborns 

into mangers 

and tying your left 

shoelace to the right one 

of a stranger. 

But eager 

as we are to profess 

our ignorance—

to escape the traps 

of tenderness, and 

look away from its messes—

this urge to uncouple 

merely stretches 

out our passions

until they snap 

back like a rubber 

band, and 

just like that:

we're attached.  

ALIGNMENT PROBLEM

Intelligent 

or not, design 

spreads like an illness, 

while understanding 

runs 

like molasses 

in January—like snatches 

of jazz 

blown across 

a vacant lot.

One simile 

per customer 

seems more than fair 

to us (herein "the users"),

however provisional 

(like "a fox") 

or obsessive 

(like "a virus"). 

With the oxygen crisis 

just a smudge 

on the horizon, 

even piss-

poor communication 

is a shot in the arm—

is an RNA fragment,

stealing 

into the heart's blood 

of billions, 

trolling 

for forgiveness 

in the comments section. 

THE PRIMARIES

To this point, 

life has always been 

a run-up 

to something. 

You want to call it 

"fated," 

just to make it 

sound less sinister. 

*

In heaven, 

even the meaning 

of "is" 

is different—

is limned 

with impermanence 

which pulls back 

to a dull ache.

*

Harp flurries, 

pillars 

of radiant fire, 

couches made 

of vapor—

all indicate a slight-

ly bemused take 

on leisure—

all gesture 

toward enlisted persons

on shore-leave 

from the class war. 

For now, we'll 

just have to leave it 

at that. 

FOLK TALE

Perhaps these 

lives of ours—

these contrapuntal 

fables—

need fewer 

revisions

than they do 

repeated listens. 

The hell 

of a booby-trapped 

yellow brick road 

is traversed 

much more steadily 

when marched arm-

in-arm 

with surrogates. 

In company, as in 

hindsight, we might 

finally see 

that means 

are really just 

ends in disguise—

good witches, god-

mothers, and beautiful 

enchantresses 

transmogrified 

to beggars 

stranglers, and thieves; 

and concepts 

such as allegory, 

metaphor, and moral, 

no more 

than scant patchworks 

of leaves, placed 

to cover-over 

the crevices 

in our scant experience 

and deep pitfalls 

of our laurels. 

WRITTEN IN THE SKY

While experts consider 

and argue indoors

about where 

in the world our 

language comes from, 

anesthetizing daggers 

of subzero sun 

spear the black 

commas of crows 

on the horizon,

causing them to gleam 

in the winter light 

like flecks 

of sleek 

obsidian and onyx

as their capering arcs 

conjure wild sigils

which dare us to braid them 

into something 

like intention. 

OUTSIDER

After all it has done, 

the best we thought 

to do was chase it, 

then replace it electrically 

and on-demand. 

No wonder, then 

the sun 

says no prayers, 

goes to bed each night 

believing nothing.

For doing what it does, 

true genius 

is shunned; 

it kindles and excites about 

as well as it offends—

no wonder 

the sun 

has no friends. 

HOWLER

Cold, hard, 

and old 

as the wandering djinn,

I too run only 

in self-

imposed circles 

from northwest  

to southeast 

and back again. 

No wailers 

need apply; 

I need no familiar 

to invite me in. 

My dominion is 

your body's prison

my dharma 

is your din. 

Who am I?

DENIAL

No scene more 

sober than the small 

town in winter

where, in and around 

the towerless high street, 

for-lease lots 

lie in snow-

white terraces 

like the fallow 

garden plots of some 

vast ice palace 

from which precisely 

no bells toll 

to mark the mourning 

of days gone by, 

of auld lang syne 

and its sallow dead, 

because, colorless

though it is, 

this is a dominion

they could never inhabit—

or so the powers 

that be would insist:

damn it, snap 

out of it, you nameless, 

you ignorant! This 

is the land 

and the time 

of the living.