each new day

the threshed out
kernels of wheat
milled into flour

baked into bread
for strangers those
who would starve

without it who
always come back
in need of

more claiming it
with all manner
of hands each

misshapen by what
the years have
brought we all

must take this
burdened stalk of
wheat bent with

harvest broken for
us in every
field by those

whose names are
lost within this
silence of loaves

requiem

In this alley stinking of urine
littered with cigarette butts
waste-water pools,
mirrors the contours of clouds
blue sky
the sun--
a single point of brilliant light.

He could speak to this
until in shadow
beneath the bridge,
unacknowledged,
he was beaten to death
for a pint of gin.

heart as lesser creatures

dots darken and swell on pages
of a library book–
i worry about the rain

she uses the words gently fall
when she can just say
fall

i lay my hand
upon the bareness of her shoulder
instead of on her bare shoulder

grey beneath pines
a hummingbird appears
circling with eager drone

i want to knock it from the air
ask it
just what the fuck it's doing

fireflies in the forest
of my youth

shadow of the hills

returning

how surprised i am to find you
in your neighbor's bed of iris
(left untended many summers
before their cottage in the oaks)
you're on your knees
among the purple blossoms
a mound of wilting weeds behind you
there is sweat upon your brow
you look at me and smile
your hair as red as ever
as if you'd never lost it
i cannot help but help you
i bend to pull the final weed
you carry a whole armful
i have only one
i say it is a wild carrot
you lay your hand on mine
no, not wild carrots
all the misplaced years

jonah to the fish—

i knew i couldn’t save myself
so leapt into the unrelenting sea

resigned to death
i was well-pleased never to return

but who can speak
of the vastness of a sea

its unknown places
deep within darkness

your shadow passed
in silence

your measureless form
hidden in many waters

i was drowning and swallowed by waves
when you were called to take me in

and bear me down
to the bottom of the world

there
where there was no light

no hope
only one voice speaking

those unstirred waters
no warmth nor subsistence for you

yet you kept me
all the given days

as if your whole being meant nothing to you
until those words were spoken

and then in silence you ascended
through some uncharted way

to birth me on the blinding shore
of a new and sunlit land.