ALLEGRO MODERATO

Above the treetops, two tuckpointers—
brick-faced, in brave white
overalls and stained khaki
ball caps,

practicing their
careful avian acrobatics
on the skinny fourth
floor scaffolding—

start dropping
indecorous-sounding exchanges
in quick, clipped Ukrainian—but still,
it's quite easy

and a small pleasure
for me, sauntering underneath
and gawking—to feel sure they're
only joking.

IDLE

Creamwhite, the
magnolias—

drooping...sleeping...dream

of me—pink
gazing,

writing this fluff.

ENDS OF THE EARTH

Having reached this clear over-

head but

mysterious spot, you stop, stand 

still and watch

strange boomerang birds—cutting

ribbons of cloud from the low-

hanging sky;

you exhale 

again,

and you feel 

the white wind 

begin to carry 

what might be

your last breath away—how far? 

This is a decent question, but it isn't 

the best one. 

Is this what you really

want? chides 

the breeze, To be 

free?—in that case, don't you see 

how you'll always 

be irrevocably 

bound to something?

You don't want to 

hear this; you insist you're not 

stuck—and neither

are you lost,

you've just gone

somewhere new 

and decided
not to move. 

There's a huge difference 

between the two;

no response

of course—but just look 

who 

you're arguing with.

WEAK AS WATER

That's enough talk about
perfect concentration.

Too much hard truth
exists here already—

correct arguments, accruing
across the noisy centuries

like arid mountainous dunes
of sandy white scruples

all collected in one or two
preposterously heavy

reference books
that cannot leave the library.

But luckily,
poetry—is nothing like that.

Poetry is vague and weak
as water;

it flutters and oozes,
and the more it gets used, the more it diffuses.

So listen, don't talk,
and just try to picture

yourself nude—all alone
in the middle of the wide open ocean,

the only such place where
so much hugeness—combined with

all that nothing—actually makes a human feel
calmer.

BODE

Dauntless black
crow, I studied
you for ages

every day clinging
to these
powerlines by the cement wall

which constantly
sway and moan
with the incessant rush of traffic

from a rude-
ly adjacent John F.
Kennedy Expressway.

Passing by this
same old way
today, it feels like it's been years

since I first came to suspect
what each
of your subtle

and practiced compensatory
movements was for—the littlest
flick, the large and slow

flap, the long and thick
shudder, like some brazenly deliberate 
challenge to the invisible—and yet,

I can still
only wish I understood—what each
movement meant.

CALLING IN SICK

Because every direction I turn in
this morning, the quickening
green of virginal spring

is trilling
in through my nose and welling
up to my eyeballs

making my skin itchy—like sticky supple
tendrils, all brushing my bare forearms
with fresh pricks of envy.

And gradually, my head's gotten
so completely fogged over with jealously
mingled with the dullest ache of apprehension

likely from gazing too hard
at that slick bluehooded
tough gang of grackles diving

fast over the next hill in front of me—probably
after a fresh gaggle of young lady-
bugs.

TOLERANCE

Freedom

is a
backpack—

the heavier

the
better.