wind tosses reddening sumac, stirs the pale green
milkweed pods — fat, & pointed at both ends
like fish bladders, like grapefruit pulp, but large
as giants’ thumbs & stubbled, like scrotums
vesicles of ripening germ — as days pass they darken
dry, & split open, spill & spread their bounty
porcelain-white fluff, each tuft bound to a small
brown seed that wind, or barring wind, bumptious I 
scatter across my yard to sprout in spring
leaf in summer, proffer monarchs a daily spread

asters like lace tatted across my yard
lavender & white, pinheads of the not yet bloomed
raining, not raining, this cool gray day
loiters, late summer, not quite fall
I sit wrapped in an autumn-colored plaid wool blanket
not ready to latch the storms, light the boiler, admit
that summer’s winding down, winter’s drawing close
fifty to forty to frost, how what greens
flowers, seeds, so swiftly blackens
I rub stalks to scatter seed — mullein, bladderwort
hollyhock — may they settle deep, take hold
burst forth in next year’s cavalcade

Vermont's Rte 116 is washed out
detoured around, half blocked with barriers
bearing signs that say “road closed
local traffic only” — still, drivers who must
see for themselves [disbelieving louts]
speed past my pedal bike along a road
I never rode before this latest change

I study farms I’ve driven by — brand new
metal sheds, large machines, baled hay —
now the small marble house is up for sale
goldfinches bounce like grasshoppers
St John’s wort is burnt from green to copper
yellow flutters down from changing trees
great blue heron scouts the muddied fen

a local owner complains of “all the gas
she's wasted” to get to where she needs to
yet today, a sunny September Saturday
she too rides her bike, “it’s so much safer
“without all those pickups” — how many
drivers slowed to admire Dow Pond
before this season’s hundred-year rains?

how many knew the Muddy Branch ran
down the mountain into the pond through
a culvert under the 50-mile-per-hour road?
FEMA-funded town planners prophesy
thousand-year rains, but why repair? can’t
ours be the first state to see we’ve driven
so much farther than anyone should go?

propped open with a twelve-inch-long board
resists my attempts to raise it higher
in order to free the board

so I tap the bottom of the window with a rubber mallet
held in my left hand
the window rises half an inch
far enough for me to shift the board

though because I’m still holding the mallet
I’m not holding up the now unstuck window
so it slams down
onto the toppling board & onto my right hand

the flat side of the board & my right hand
lie wedged
between the bottom of the window & the windowsill

I drop the rubber mallet
try to pull away my hand — stuck
try to raise the window — stuck

I think about my phone
where I set it on the bed after checking the weather
rain, it said, from the north, it said
a good reason to close the north-facing window
now closed, or nearly so

again I try to raise the window
again I try to pull away my hand

I think about foxes & wolves
their paws stuck in man-made traps
how they chew off their paws

so I pull & pull, feel skin tear, pull
until my hand comes free
indented, numb

cold running water slows the bleeding
my hand throbs
my stiff fingers barely wiggle
I dry my hand, apply a bandage

I think for a long time about what it means to live alone

the Concord River though not the Nile
carries many crocodiles, the revered
Concord River crocodile, Crocodylus
concordia, so dark brown as to be called
black & ridged with shiny turtles — red
sliders — so unlike the rubbled matte
snapper inching down a driveway
across the road from its home swamp

Faberge riverside glutted with sun-
sparkled greens, river water laced with
water lily, fanwort, bumps that might
be turtles, but no, the bumps are crowns
of baby crocs, lurking floaters ‘til grown
past boat length, slick with weed
feeders on water strider & damselfly
dangling fingers, toad & frog fry

homes along the banks anticipate
their end — rising water, civil war
evolving virus as well as predatory
Crocodylus — the newly warmed world
celebrates a spreading mesh of feral
DNA — the running amok of life
cleansed of Homo strain, guaranteed
planet earth life après les régimes

fourth grade, a name — Hugh? — a small boy
the teacher said he died of a weak heart
I pictured a white shirt, a pale featureless face
he’d been absent so often I remembered
nothing much, a moving shape, & no one
not a single fourth grader mourned him
we didn’t know what grief was — oh, perhaps 
some knew it, but not for this small
gone-away-forever boy — we moved on
would it have been long-division? or coloring
maps of far away countries? green for forests
yellow for growing grain, pale brown for sand
where camels plodded past dunes — the priest
came three times a week to read the next
chapter of Narnia books, the frightened
yet brave children, the stern lion — the priest
never explained how lions & witches
taught us religion, we thought him
dangerously peculiar, & we worried
he’d be taken away before the children
made it home, instead, the school year
ended, I found the books at the library
read to the end & then back to the beginning
& back to the end again, fifth grade brought
a different priest, in fifth grade no one died

the cat parks on my bed every morning, dares me
to try & make it, what’s it to him if sheets are untucked
twisted & tossed, the blanket crumpled, pillows strewn

I pass & repass his steady glare, sometimes hours pass
before he feels the urge to move, by then I may be
otherwise engaged, well into my day, my chore forgotten

evenings, when I’m too worn down to retuck corners
snap away wrinkles, he eases into the tangle with me
lithe unknowable familiar, he curls into my armpit, purrs

against my cheek, nips my wrist, nothing but grip
& release, not like the early days when those bites
drew blood — his are urgent needs — my palm

cups his head, fingers rake his neck, both hands
gloss the silken run of his back, he purrs, he nudges
& paws, bares his nape to mine, flexes his claws

at my hip the cat purrs, paws curled, fur like velvet
the stairs need another coat of paint
I forget to check for ticks before my shower
rain today, every other day rain
my dresser & clothes smell of mold

roar & swish of passing cars & trucks
distant train horn, not the Vermonter, too early
click, click, a bird, barely heard
underneath all the sizzle & hiss of the stream
last year dry from May to September

time passes, I paint the stairs
while the door stands open to allow me
to paint the bottom steps
not a single cat runs up them

noisy sun, quiet clouds
quieter rock piles hide in the wildflowers
how might rocks & flowers play together?

of course when I open the staircase door
barely an hour after I finish painting
to look at the pale green stairs
one cat runs up, so I run up to grab the cat
our footprints now part of history

the rocks & flowers play outdoors
without my interference

at Greg’s antique shop, dark-skinned men
swagged, corded, buttoned into brightly
colored uniforms stand erect, on duty
other dark-skinned men, turbaned, sit
crosslegged, brightly lit under lamp shades
if I spent money like I shake salt, I would pay
whatever Greg asked to bring them home
lay them out, smash them to smithereens

now that human language has died out
other language fills the generous gap
whisper of bloom, susurration of leaf fall
whale warble, coyote chorus, donkey bray
cats on darkened city streets spar & yowl
streams sizzle down ledges across the road
weeks of rain, they say, make freshets of us
water roars through & over breached dams
gurgles through wetlands, cracks concrete
poured by greedy men, yes, men — women
did not ruin the earth — let cities & wars end
governments & coin, genocide & servitude
a trail of smoke from a small fire, a survivor
boiling roots, cracking nuts for her last meal

frantic little cat, my most insistent cat
when I write you settle in my lap on top of
my laptop, an arching purring ur self, these are
your words, cat speak, body in the bend of mine
face in my face, nose pushing my nose, in & out of
the shower, head wetter than mine, your own towel
between times skidding through the side porch
flying rugs across floors, howling out of sight
until at last you hone your claws on sisal
leap to your high bed where you curl & slump
like your sister, so still upstairs on the spare bed
I think she might be dead, Alice, I say, she bares
her belly, curls to my hand, it’s enough to skip
the romp her downstairs brother lives for

old age means having time to notice
every wildflower — chicory, fleabane
bladder campion, mullein & milkweed
tooth- & mother- & mug- & st-john’s-
wort, plus others, each with a name
I could aim to learn — a green spire’s
yellow blossoms, its new name
already gone, I know now I forget
my younger mind ebbs, memories
old & new, this trick or that, the cats
don’t mind, they don’t know things too
for example, why I don’t want my flesh
kneaded by outstretched claws
pressure, puncture, frisson of pain
passage through nothingness to joy

        It is real work not to perform a fable.
                    — Natalie Diaz

I’d rather wake
every morning into silence
into nothingness

not rise to a script
someone’s expectation
a show me your . . .

no, all I am
is what I may do today
what by dark can dissipate

lightning bolt
lightning bugs
there, & there, & there

a sunny warm day, glints of dusk
through tall weeds
                                  groundhog ambles
sniffs & is sniffed, rubs & is rubbed
if she could speak she might praise
this wealth of unmowed green 
these safe acres where once an eager
beagle rutted
                         groundhog’s unaware of
the old woman peering through
binoculars, the black cat against
a pollen-dusted window screen

he comes home, the headache
gone, ten staples, what happens next
is I sleep through the night, I find
I can read a book, pages & pages
without waking from the continuous
dream, what happens next? I remember
to go outside, to lift carry pile rocks
when the piles merge I’ll have a wall

my weeds are four feet high
undaunted by drought, yellow & white
orange & lavender bloom, the trees
decked, my cart path bowered
grasses brimming with grain
groundhog homeboy the digging fool
adds a back door near the barn
where the chicken house stood

let’s have no more story
instead scuff soil, discover seed
twice daily I water the field of sod
a few green spears rise from wilted
clumps, so what if I wake glum?
make the bed before it gets away
through the crystal the sky says gray
the cat says purr, another day

how long can the barn swallow
leave her eggs before they’re cold?
twelve-tone birds fly up over down
house finch, goldfinch, phoebe
a lot to say about daily nothing
three swallows hatch, great blue
lifts from the river, shuttered
from sight by summer’s veiling

one turkey mines corn stubble
mid-June & not yet plowed
where’s the farmer? where’s
the turkey’s flock? one kernel
leads to another, a bluebird box
unmowed wetland cleaves
the acre, daytime typology
midfield a great branched maple

under a plank bridge across a gully
paw & claw marks in milk-colored mud
long curving swipes on the trail
rotten tree trunks shredded for grubs
torn fibers rust red, zest yellow
bark ripped from roots to bear-height
bare trunk scratched & exposed
ash borer’s D-shaped holes

robins bound from branch to earth
woodpeckers drum, a sunlit glade
we nearly missed — John tells me
I don’t scan, I must forgo speech
let the woods speak, maple & oak
popple & beech, moss mounds
top-40 bird song, high middle low
yet no maestro, no black tie & tails

when I itch, everything balloons
when I hike, everything camouflages
when I read, every letter mimes an ant
when I look, everything & everyone are here

Yellow tang, blue parrotfish, spotted puffers — some
ballooned, some flaccid — hundreds of silver trumpets,
pendulous wrasse. The water is clear, then, as it deepens,
murkier, coral architecture mottled dark & light. Round
one outcrop glides a snake, ghostly white floater. It turns
from my shadow, sinks to a rubbled perimeter, threads 
into a dark place. No interest in me at all, yet I panic.
My flippered kicks propel me back to the beach. I unstick
my mask, wrench my feet free, reach for a towel, cower
in a chilly offshore breeze. What’s the smell of a snake 
coiled in salt water? Out of flickering sea a knob rises,
cracks open to suck down air. Why would a life move
& hunt & breed in one atmosphere & breathe another?
The long peregrinations, poised ascents, brief inhales.

                 the short & simple Annals of the Poor
                                           — Thomas Gray

parking lot of the Maynard Mill, what felt like miles from car to heated
buildings, times I walked past the asphalt edge with the most beautiful
man for a fuck on the sly, his wife also beautiful, so I wondered, why’d
he do it? the two of us, stolen candy, sugar buzz — oh, to be so desired

I don’t remember his name, or hers, did they or did they not have babies?
as I did, safe in daycare, every other week bundled off to their father
I had my cake & ate it too with names I do remember — Harry, Ralph
Paul, Lucas, Sean — truant from our jobs those long-lunch afternoons

other times we’d randomly pair, cocking a snook at Emily Post behavior
fucking & laughing — the post-birth-control pre-Aids age of Roe —
anything a body could do with teeth & hair, hollows, bulges, elbows, knuckles, breastbones, spines, every body different, every body the same

I was no one’s except my own, & when a later husband wanted to know
how many, I couldn’t tell him, I’d notched no belts, Goodhart’s Law says
when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure
where would such a figure go? Times obit? Insta post? tombstone?

where boats manned by men sink
every single one, as if the Phoenicians
never existed, as if Polynesians
never set sail, as if Lord Nelson
drowned in his bath, unremarked

whereas women sail unmolested
pacific, they have no words for war —
shield, siege, castle, moat — they abide
peacefully in thatched cottages
feed on plants, worship no gods

children are amply praised & men exist
tho hobbled at birth & castrated after one
instance of sexual congress — they make
decent pack animals, & like the women
dream & sing & dance & make art

no one remembers how women
learned to minimize men, one suspects
a pre-historic testosterone-amped surge
nipped in the bud by womenfolk
once a year they don scare-masks

they run, shout, rattle gourds
beat on drums, oh, & how they laugh

Each man lives beneath a tree and during the winter covers the tree with
waterproof white felt, which he removes for the summer.
              — Herodotus

flying over the region during winter I note the white-capped trees
in the country of the Argippaioi, & under each tree a man
(though I alter the text to say “a woman”), I imagine her, all
winter licking black fluid drained from the fruit of the pontikon tree

Herodotus is not to be believed but to be entertained by

the fabulous tale about winged serpents who build nests of cinnamon
stalks & cinnamon traders who chop animals into large pieces
onto the forest floor, whence the serpents carry the chunks to their nests
where the weight causes the nests to fall to the earth, where traders gather
cinnamon stalks & carry them off to far lands to exchange for gold

as for the Issedones, their women share power equally with 
their men — who believes that? & they feast on their fathers’ dead bodies
plus griffins & one-eyed men, yet what’s most incredible are the wars
wars & more wars, kings & sons of kings & malcontents & deceivers
beheadings, impalings, hangings & stranglings, sacrifices, exiles

but Herodotus does not tell all, he sometimes chooses to forget

a worm senses change, more light
& warmer air driven
ahead of the blade, the hoe
watches two worms twist away
do they feel pain?

folks who'd rather shoot than vote
rather pray than read a book
guard the borders, block
refugees, send them back home
while home sinks under rising seas

while Chevron, Exxon, BP, & Gasprom
drill, billionaires burn jet fuel
militants wage war
so the human species ends, earth
feels better every day

ten years too late
four walls rise from the pit
frame the north room
the floor slopes away

beyond the heaps of soil
rock, rotted clapboard, foam block
concrete forms
                             the earth
greens, the wild flowers

leggy shrubs unfurl
mature trees sprout yellow
catkins & tented leaves

I clear a swath of brush
kindle a green fire
white smoke, orange flame

Linnaean naming
catalogs ancestry, locates
species, sub of genus

replicate, assemble
molecule to cell to many-celled 
to multi-featured

yet competence needn’t require
complexity, consider
coronavirus, or a cancer cell

do you for a moment
believe we are more capable
than they are?

perhaps the only way forward
requires us to concede
that conscious life

resides in every atom
trees, weather, stones, rivers, fire
if all speak, why not listen?

underfoot, under the metal spikes
clamped to my boots, the many-times-
trod-on icy trails of late winter
lead me once again to the woods
earth’s snow cover softens with melt
the sun’s bright, the temp nears forty
buds grip red-tinged branches
willows gleam golden, in bare swaths
flattened grasses twitch skyward
the giant fallen trunks showcase
yellow lichen, orange polypores
knobby clumps of evergreen moss
what seems black & white the winter
long shimmers in spring’s prism

no, nothing
to admire among Persona nongrata
the accidents of Emily Dickinson, Rosa Parks
no more than rogue
offshoots from rudest stock

fie to the one who named
the species after the male gender
as if Branta canadensis were Gander canadensis
as if it weren’t crime enough
to name a bird after a nation state

brutes who compete
ravage, vanquish, dominate, ever enclose
what once was common turf
exterminators who now face extinction
richly deserved

no, not by the slow dying of the sun
not by earth's heat erupting thru the crust
instead, by its own hands
mining, burning, polluting, the species
wills its end

when I stand on an eastern shore
I see the rising sunbeams
strike the sea in a straight line to me
also in a straight line to you
proving we are the same person
in the same place at the same time

the real — what is outside me —
exists each in an actual place
while what is inside me does not
settle even after long trying
any sense of you being you & me
being me is make believe

you can’t tell what my hand
held out & open in outside air
means, nor can you ask me
since I don’t speak, you can only
see — my fingers slightly bend
the lines of my palm crisscross
my thumb arcs at ninety degrees
one half of a bridge to somewhere
unexplained, my hand’s appearance
alters slightly as I walk past you
my open hand travels through
the light of day, perhaps my toes
spread wide inside my shoes
perhaps my blood flows
faster when every digit spreads
you can’t pretend to know

to stand on a threshold
to act before & now & after
to suspend time
as if to be galactic, as if to be universal
to turtle up through green water
to lizard along a lichened trunk
to spider a thread out to a distant limb
to raven a power line
to raccoon a compost heap
to sample dirt
to touch, to pick up, to drop a handful of pebbles
to trace a meadow, a forest, a ledge
to angle toward sunshine
toward rain, toward dark, toward starlight
to find instead of self 
a commons

what if the dozen homes I owned
now lie abandoned, ruins overrun
first by nameless faceless homeless
fruitatarians, later by termites & vines
eagles & scorpions, rattlers & bats

picture the splinters, cracks, the mold
the odor, mounds of feces & bones
gardens wild, asphalt guttered
fences sprung & toppled — end of
end of hegemonic gains

here in the thirteenth home I own
a rubbled ruin when I came, now safer
warmer, it’s I who abide, further
travel, spending, aims abandoned
energy overrun by footprints & age

yet every day I spring from my bed
listen & look around, brew my favorite
tea, explore inside, wander outside
listen & look, conjugate, mutate
interweave what’s here, what waits

ag: I place my hand before my beard with awe
cp: finger my chin hairs, curly, soft, blond
ag: and stare through open-uncurtained window
cp: watch the cat step across the sill
ag: rooftop rose-blue sky thru
cp: fractaled lichened trees
ag: which small dawn clouds ride
cp: radiant blue sky
ag: rattle against the pane
cp: gravel rubbled across the lawn
ag: lying on a thick carpet matted floor
cp: castings of the late night snow plow
ag: at last in repose on pillows my knees
cp: disappear in warmth, the snow
ag: bent beneath brown himalayan blanket, soft —
cp: parade of boot- & footprints melting —
ag: fingers atremble to pen, cramp
cp: hands agrip on garden rake, light
ag: pressure diddling the page white
cp: touch coaxing the stones loose
ag: San Francisco notebook —
cp: Vermont false spring

livable minimum wage is $25/hr [reviewed annually]
maximum salary [including bonuses / stock / perks] is 10x minimum wage
people who are able between 25 & 70 work 40 hr weeks 50 weeks a year
no overtime
vacation = 4 wk/yr
everyone who does not earn at least $50k/yr is paid the difference between $50k & whatever they earned [inverse of taxes]
everyone who makes more than $50k/yr pays federal income tax
federal income tax is progressive
all income [salary / interest / dividends / capital gains / etc] is taxed at the same rate
estate tax on estates greater than $5m is 90%
all gifts are taxable income
all tax deductions go away
state tax is illegal
sales tax is illegal
no distinction made between profit & nonprofit corporations
corporations are not treated as people
no mergers & acquisitions
no monopolies
no stock buybacks
corporate tax law is vastly simplified
tax havens are illegal
patents & copyrights expire after 5 years
Medicare A/B/C/D for everyone is free
education at all levels is free
private schools are illegal
each taxable individual can own one home, no second homes
govt owns all rental property, govt is only landlord
vacant residential units are illegal & repossessed by govt
individuals only can make political contributions
all political contributions are reported to the public
lobbying is canceled
gerrymandering is canceled
all representation is proportional [Senate is canceled]
congressional bills must be single issue
electoral college is canceled
every working illegal immigrant & their children are granted citizenship
all non-criminal asylum seekers are granted citizenship
etc
oh, & police are canceled

they say Emily doesn’t read Walt
Holland tells her he’s disgraceful
does that stop her?

I will go to the bank by the wood & become undisguised & naked.

Emily doesn’t speak in that register

A few light kisses . . . a few embraces . . . a reaching round of arms.

does she suspect 
he is her lone contemporary
& might dilute her?

Always a knit of identity . . . Who need be afraid of the merge?

Walt plays the social game
Emily has no such innocence
enslaved by patriarchy, by gender
she invents her freedom

Between My Country — and the Others —
There is a Sea —
But Flowers — negotiate between us — 
As Ministry.

Pollak claims Walt never heard of Emily
why should we believe that?

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Walt imagines her lusting after his twenty-eight young men
he doesn’t know of Austin, of Susan

Dropped — my fate — a timid Pebble —
In thy bolder Sea —
Prove — me — Sweet — if I regret it —
Prove Myself — of Thee —

no one unmasks Emily’s longings

Afraid! Of whom am I afraid?
Not Death — for who is He? . . .
Of Life? Twere odd I fear a thing
That comprehendeth me

Walt boasts, so much I this & I that
Emily’s humility sings

life
can be whole
or hole, where half of the whole has been
stripped away, or mislaid
either way, the missing half, whether

good
or bad, leaves
a partial whole, something less than whole
wind & rain pour into
the open hole, comfort & pleasure

fade
so we work
to fill the hole, to make the hole whole
but the missing half was
one of a kind, all else is a square

peg
in a round
hole, time passes, margins erode, whole
lifetimes sputter without
finding the match to light the empty

space
where the hole
is, nota bene, the someone light-
ing the match must be some-
one new making a whole new whole, not

same
old, same old
such a trial to fill that empty hole
might it take forever
to make two halves whole? forget the damn

hole
another way
is not to let the whole fall apart
but that means putting up
with flaws, means life in a broken whole

I never knew my grandmother
because my grandfather put her away
for her own good
                               some say
she was silent & sad, very sad

my aunt writes to the family
Mother’s been so unhappy
                                              last Sunday
Father took her to the home
she’ll be better off

why someone believes
incarceration improves a life
escapes me
                      what she allows
the tyrant to get away with baffles me

in the ’40s you could do that
lock people up for being inconvenient
he prefers another
                                 yes, my mother knows
he tried to seduce her too

my grandmother steps away
leaves him be, refuses to speak
to him
            she’s depressed, he says, no
says my mother, she’s mad, for a reason

locked away my grandmother escapes
everything
                   she doesn’t speak or move
she gives them her body
to clean & dress, feed & medicate

the separating power of space
                                                      she
disappears, like toes inside a stocking
like nits in a raccoon’s fur
the space where she flies free

snow melt bares a winter meadow
pillowed blades of yellowed grass
russet streaks, stripes of silvery green
the filmy sky, the wind-downed trees
patchy with pale frilled lichen
old wood cloaked in glowing moss
ahead a mile-long glacial ridge
diagonal thrust, squared columns
plates of ice cling to the ridge face
gravity’s trickle, black slicks of seep
fallen rock, visible roots, hidden
hollows rubble the unmarked path
I take, the matters & facts of earth
so much more than I can see

a concatenation of molecules
not one of which knows anything beyond its
molecular connectivity
                                         that is to say rock
doesn’t know its measure — breadth, width
or weight — or its place, much less its traverse
via earthquake, volcano, glacier
or moving plates
                              history seen & hammered
& cored & interpreted, but not known

the lean of a tree, the curve of a shore
what appears in every instant to be a
line is the nothing nature has to say
curl of a wave, puff of a cloud — what
science claims to explain, the latest
take on what Newton began, believe
it if you need something to believe, but
it’s no more true than a wishing well
wanting to know doesn’t mean knowing

housed in my cellar submarine
oil-breathing pink-&-purple jellies
balloon & deflate in freshly delivered
fuel — oil mists, a spark flares
red-tinged explosions at every grate —
trapped in their dark fragrant vehicle
the jellies fail to acknowledge human
fate, all the better to genuflect & swan
plie, arabesque, when jellies copulate
tentacles entwine, male mouths spray
females inhale, half-digested sperm
swarm over eggs, replication ensues
no wonder the room grows warm

1931, a year too young for Yale
he was sent for a finishing year abroad
we read the letters he wrote to his mother
& jottings in his day book — HitlerJugend
marching every afternoon, weekend
outings with Werner, Friedrich, Birgit, Uta
frolicking nights of Wurst und Bier —
his sister Alice said, he came back changed

1941, a new uniform, Navy lieutenant
the freshly minted MD shipped off to war
our mother described his nightmares
how she would shake, wake him, silence
his screams
                       he beat us for being what
he didn’t want, Heil Hitler, damn his eyes

mountain reduced to a hill
trail engineered in rectangular stones
paved roads for let’s-not-walk-ers
highest branches gold-leafed in winter sun
ill-conceived papering over
legitimate truths the land retains
original structure waits

on humanity’s fall
long hibernating roots quiver to rise
instar & eft turkey & hawk
hare skunk moose deer fox bear weasel
people the archived slopes
trails gutter paved roads breach
mountain of glacial rock graven stone

never obsess over hair or clothes or pimples
or whether he’s liked or how to disappear
instead he spends half the morning in my lap
& all night pressed up against me in my bed
you might as well say our bed since I’m never
in it without him, except for brief forays
to eat or wrestle with the other cat
or investigate a sudden noise (might be
a mouse), if I stroke him in the night
he slithers up to my face, opens his salmon-
scented mouth & purrs with a sound
like a broken water pump, kneads my neck
with sharp claws, he knows he’s perfect
even without algebra, a foreign language
& an intramural sport, for the hour before
climbing into my lap each morning
he roams the house crying for everything
he doesn’t have (good grades, better
parents, a girl friend, spending money)
I scratch his ears, offer him food, tell him
just wait, someday you’ll be old like me
then you’ll have something to complain about

young trees, branches bare & budded
(precociously primped for spring) lash
my face bushwhacking along sans
trail, I’m searching for mud pond
I straddle fallen trees, stumble out
& down to patches of snow & ice
deer spoor, reeds treading in slush
must scout for higher drier ground
ahead a pale gleam, the promised pond
I climb a ledge to a logger’s road
of course, why else the young
woods, mossy stumps, I stroll home
so easy, no lashings, no swamp
next time I’ll hike the road down
ready to brave mud pond’s surround

what remains mystery
is what cannot be called information
e.g., how humans think
& what happens to the thinking
after the body dies

the spark of life (like Morse code — 
dot dash space) is more than binary
thus a coin may also be a cow
or sex or ale or an acre

life can also be death
as present deliquesces into past
she is, she isn’t, she was

why my cat doesn’t tear me apart
is something I can’t explain

sunshine & shadow, flannel clad
cat curls at my feet, sumacs
crowd from either side, cypress
— two, leaning — the winter green

autonomic, the kinetic drive
one cannot but strive, every morning
the blank page, decades of 
accretion, symbiosis

today a tree falls in the woods
I walk out to see what else

slow fade to copper
lapis, the blue you cannot see
puddles of ambergris
the paths are never overgrown
things belong to other people
ash, nettles, sediment
water tumbles over river rocks
soup from a thighbone
warm & achy rainy night

slate-gray dark-eyed junco
only now, mid-afternoon, late October
I spot you, rocking boat on flayed forsythia
— pale limbs, flagging yellow leaves —

another you on withered Queen Anne’s Lace
— bendy stalks, umbelled dry flowers —
now twenty you spring like bouncing
beads from browning grass & weeds

all winter you’ll forage near & far
undismayed by cold & snow & ice
welcome home, you feathery surrogate
you mystery marker of circular time

work night, meetings end at the bar
after too many bourbons, I squeeze
beside the piano player, play any
key he’s not already using, cacophony
contrived from Shostakovich
I’m too drunk to reckon anyone else
I free associate, temper my fugue
I thunder, I soar, & pay the price
when hours later toxins flay me
morning after, all I want is to be
a someone else not too drunk
to stand alongside me, see & hear 
my every jarring note, record me
overcharged with unrepentant glory

the beefy bear-hunting hound
(four collars, two curving antennae)
lopes along on four limber dog legs
his mobility, his desire, his nose

he steps past his owner, leaps to
the roof of the three-dog crate
back of the pickup cab, two dog heads
poke through holes — tip, eye, howl

the free hound will not come down
will not submit, must be dragged
four strong articulate legs, vigorous
heart, yet bound, collared, caged

fingers of red sumac flail
importune the heaving cypress

any wind is stronger than
plants preferring to idle

they flutter without intent
touch without desire

the camera shoots
no choice but to represent

a chorus of sumac leaves
aroused, mutely screaming

               — 1974 Elsinore St Concord MA

one night, like most nights
children asleep, medicine, milk inside me
I lie in pain, in bed, or on my bed
crouching, groaning, kneading my stomach
as if pressure from outside might quell
the agony inside, at some point
I remember — meditate, chant — 
until the session’s past, until time shifts
from pain time to plain time, when I sleep

next morning a cop stands on my doorstep
we didn’t want to bother you last night
to scare you — the peeper had leaned
my ladder against my bedroom window
peered in while I suffered unaware
of the cop who lived across the street
who saw it, called it in, ran over & clocked him
a known low-IQ perp, they booked him
beat the crap out of him, he won’t do it again

next evening, not yet dusk, I spy the peeper
crouched in the bushes, lower branches
heaving, I rush him, brandishing
whatever comes to hand, scream foul
curses — he runs, I don’t see him go
only that he’s gone & I raging, the ladder
safely stowed, the bedroom curtains pulled
he never returns, or he’s watching me
still, wishing only to share the pain

you think I’m dead because I’m shriveled & gray
strung from a twig in my bare winter garden
listen, I’m dissolving into my DNA
spiracles pipe me air, instructions guide
my reconstitution, when spring comes
— spine-tingling spring — I’ll emerge
winged, bright colored, I’ll bowl you over