YAKETY YAK

I submit

Kate—you'll always

and forever be—

a prominent

powerful

and instantly

recognizable—

husky 

vocal lead.

But even

when it seems

like I'm back-

talking hopelessly—

know 

I'm merely—doing my best

to imitate

the cartoony

old 

saxophone bleating away—

really just 

to fill-

in

those 

gaps left—whenever!

you need a short

laugh 

or—more 

emphatically—

a good 

little rest.

EZ-GO

It's just—no use 

trying 

to convince the faint grimacing 

and stout 

capped old-

timer 

outside on the stoop—

who's squinting 

hunched and narrow-

eyed—a flurry 

of pinched fingers—

over a ritualized

lunch break prize 

scratch-and-win ticket—

that it's too

late—he's long since

bet everything 

he'd ever been 

capable 

of gaining—

and won. 

POEM FOR VERA ELLEN

The best things 

happen while you're dancing—

so that's how come 

you 

missed them all.

HALOS

Once in a while—in summer

gloomy clots 

of Great Lakes weather

make—

soggy and cedar-

shaded acres

of stubborn yellow

spindles of weeds—look rather

circuitously

a lot 

like flowers.

COLLIDING FRONTS

Fresh and cool

sour green

mint of frothy horse piss—

ebullient and

tangy—goes jaunty intermingling

with the warm rising 

facades of burnt 

sugar from almost everywhere else—

to co-

create—in an instant 

effortless 

cascading—

waves of timeless Main Street. 

OCCASIONALLY DAISIES SPLIT THE ROCKS

Among all 

the possible

worlds—there exists 

a blissful 

milk blue one—in which 

the poet

describes perfectly

(without 

much stormy 

flotsam of words

or any 

disparaging footnotes)

the area 

underneath 

each fluke of a curve.

But thankfully

there 

would also

be—mathematically 

more than 

a couple 

in which I 

am no good 

at telling you any of this.

THE WAY IT CRUMBLES

Dismissing every little 

bit—of gravel 

with a nonchalant kick 

from each 

of a pair of dusty

eager sneakers—my little body turned  

and moved

toward looming 

sun and streets 

and what

it felt

was surely freedom—

without so much as 

even pausing—

to consider

the reciprocal 

boon that had just 

been granted

in relinquishing  

those humble

eons-

old pebbles.