GONE WITHOUT THE WIND

Just like that—some grimy cookies 

and cream-colored pigeons 

are gobbling down the sidewalk shade, 

leaving droppings in their wake 

like greasy clues 

to secret undiscovered neighborhood 

places—storm drains stuffed 

with leaves and cigarette 

packs and old beetle shells, 

erased bus stops, and the smelled 

tang of dog shit and some 

nearby dead rat—all linking 

like keys to locks, with these

nauseous and 

depressing spells; how dare we care

for one another? Does every book 

need a cover? How do I say I don't care

in a way that still matters?

Then, something warmish 

and sudden: a flap. The littlest 

ripple, and they are gone—with 

or without the wind—on wings 

they could only have 

stolen from me.

DAY TO DAY

Faint,
amorphous, and

far away
as abstract concepts—the clouds

have nothing
important

to say
about my affairs.

REMAIN

The terra cotta
pot—which underlies

and engenders the flowers—
does not

challenge; it does not
object, but

applies its
clay-dull concentration

to the task—
breathing in,

then exhaling, bulging
outward again—

it touches
the bare earth

at all times,
no matter what—leaving

absolutely
no space in between

(it is an expert at that).
It knows

it is
a miracle—a revelation

to grow
and to change

and to stay
and to leave—but

it is a discipline
to remain

content
to play the same bit part

in every
consecutive moment.

GUTTER

Jocund, the noble

goldfinch—takes his Sunday baths

where he can get them.

GIRL, YOU'LL BE A WOMAN SOON

Violent,
but achingly
sweet-
ly, a changeling's
eye-

teeth
breach the quivering
red flesh
of their
first nectarine.

GENERATIONS

Going out
my front door each morning,
I bow

to you, slight
callow sapling—who meekly haunts
the cusp

of a tainted
stump—and whose obdurate shade,
when my bones

are loam, may fall
toward the shoulder of my great-
grandson.

SHELL

You do not have to
make up your mind, because I've

made mine up for you.
Like a stubborn old mollusk—who's

been dredged up
from the stony dark ocean bottom

and disabused
of all hope and ambition

because he's never
seen the starlight—this is

my only gift, my greatest
lasting favor:

I swear not to wonder
where I am going? I'll just pose

the question: where did I come from? 
Everyone walks around knowing

so very little, but they pretend like
that's a lot.

My body is closed; I will not
debate that. Perfectly,

I'll maintain this ebony silence.
I'm not your

salvation. I am not your hell.
I don't exist

to make the feeling of existence
any easier to take.

I simply exist
to make the feeling of existence

a little less hard
to illustrate.