overheard fish eyes drip with sunset fears

  lined up for a drink the tyranny of loose fingers

 he pries open a wind-blown gift box of despair

 the sound of birds bathing two miles from china

they taught me to count and cough and mock the larch trees for hoping

 trying on old lies a verb shifts into a noun

 precautionary note lily pollens stick to words 

 floating up the neon flood a school of eyes

 deeper than an ocean roar a dry cough

 

 wind thumbing the alphabet the tall and short of clouds 

 

 strapped to a lamp post skin moulting unlabeled

 

 

 whale clouds crossing the night bridge for breath

 

 no one addresses darkness with due respect 

 

 stirring the eye of a hurricane in her matcha

 

 

 storm wind a pregnant silence heaves

 

 he pries open a wind-blown empty gift box despair in the time of the COVID-19

 

should fingers born elastic be of man whose dreams belie a hand?

the book tells me twist your curls in spirals to heaven 

boat-like no matter his foot marks melt the mud

the next page a loon  known to me

vacuumed silence a tundra

insomnia the creek talks in stitches

 words/all have sneaked  away into the darkness 

assignation  a congregation of Spanish moss has taken over

where to find rain that I may wash bitterness off my chest

stare a condition of the eye that belies the soul's long rains

the shifting light presupposes I’m on terra firme

the sea in my ear washing to shore a bridge skips sunset 

screams draw the night moaning as if torture is ecstasy 

insomnia pitched voices stalking shadows