Birth

On adjacent hilltops two deer stand firm.
Doe eyes and buck eyes, a valley's distance
separating two unknowing parents.
Two animals who together knew how
life and life dialogue, create anew,
craft light smaller and bigger than themselves.
And hair, hooves quiver inside, delighted
within the common effort of parents.

Beautiful kicking, soft on stomach's side,
reminds me that I sustain joyous life,
joyous because this life is able to
accept love from two who love each other,
from two who knew pieces of themselves could
dwell in womb mystery, in holy cave.

Winter Cliffs

Like standing in the English Channel, looking
back at Dover's shore, chalky white limestone
topped with green hair, with dark trees.
But here the water is fresh and in tiny
flakes halfway between ice and liquid,
flowing between the old corn stalks
of a western New York field.

Here the cliffs are lower, a range remnant
rising up in anonymity; Arnold doesn't write
of these humble hills, but some know
their shape and form, curving tops,
soft embrace of valley--
those in the corn field standing,
in the trees singing,
who sleep nearby in beds of white,
who call this snowy rising theirs.

Rooster Waking

Cracked dry mud walls present
black rooster, alone at dawn
under the brightening sky.

Behind the wood-paneled door
lie sleeping families, soon to meet him
at the point of warmed ground,
at the place of turned soil.

Black Mold

It isn't smart to be here, it isn't safe.
What remains of the second level floor
creaks a warning—don’t come on me,
I’ll break, I’ll give you right through
to the ground floor.

The signs on the locked doors
said something about demolition
but I didn't care because
I didn't read those signs.
I went through an open window.

Black mold, the annoying and hungry
visitor who never left,
tried to remodel,
chomping chunks off the walls,
throwing them up on the floor,
eating through the glue that kept it all together.

And the bathroom on the first floor:
ceiling all in the bathtub, spongy black mass
covering the floor, the smell moist, acrid,
the toilet seat up and the toilet bowl
painted in human waste tones,

and there a pink loofah sponge hanging
on the tub faucet, a pink disposable razor
resting on the porcelain edge, there because
a bathing woman once stepped out to grab
a forgotten towel, and her visitor decided
to use the soapy bathwater.

I can't leave such a delicious
scene of ruin, a house exposed,
a place where people I knew once lived.

Life Muscles

Tha-thump

Free heart,
a pulse
of blood
and gift,
is wrapped,
in ribs,
in skin,
and breath.

Tha-thump
Tha-thump

Two drums,
two notes
connect
to form
one sound,
one line,

one raw

duet.

Tha-thump
Tha-thump
Tha-thump

After Jessica's "Winter Sun"

Winter Sun

The sun
Hidden behind a cloud.
You can look straight into it, a blank
White eye.

After Jessica's "Winter Sun"

I told myself to look at the obvious:
          the lines on my palms,
          the palms holding possibilities,
          the fingers grasping keys,
and those keys unlocking the
prison walls I thought
could somehow save my
little soul.

And so I'm
looking
looking
looking
with my blind eyes closed.

Gossip Subject

I have a fictional life
that I didn't even get to
enjoy pretending I live;
you wove a life of
new tales and told
everyone
of their truth.

Now I'm losing who I am
in the fog of someone not
me, wondering if I did
all those cruel things you
told everyone I did.
And all this while I've
hidden crying in
the closet.

On Classmates' Poems

Twilight Trees

Dark branches, vascular in the failing light;
roots reaching down, deep into the sky.

On Jim Vitale's "Twilight Trees"

exhalation, seeds into the air.
inhalation, birds into my lungs.
exhalation into sky.
inhalation into soil.
sky into soil, soil into sky
and the tree growing from
my heart breathes both ways.

On the steps of St. Paul

Moldy crackers scattered for pigeons,
Stripped flesh consumed.

On Joyce Crissman's "On the steps of St. Paul"

Resurrected body from the tomb
but the strips of flesh still line
the steps of St. Paul's,
daily reminders for the
pilgrims coming to coo prayers,
pigeons massing for a cracker
that's moldy only because
they let faith idle in the damp
basements of their hands.

Imagist Poems

Bucket
Even after rain,
a bucket with a hole
is still empty

They Couldn't Salvage Anything
A house burning
is a home on fire.

Winning the Lottery
Getting struck by
lightening or
a tornado,
but nice.

My Skin Absorbing
Sitting in a red clay mud pit,
in a bucket of lumpy paint.

Snowfall
Glitter falling from an upset craft project.
Walking home at night through light snowfall.

Legal Stimulant
Addicted to joe, that's
one tasty cup of sludge.
Falling toward a black hole,
toward another dimension.