you peel a sweet potato and then say yes 

in the mustard seed a monkey lands on the moon

 sometimes there is mustard on your nose 

 indifferent to the Uinta Basin Palestine

 at this time of year the trees watch you 

 after the soup he looks at the cupboard 

 in the Clas Ohlson bag his Santa costume 

this time you don't tell them about the hawk 

 elk bones first steps on fresh snow

 the fireworks a day late peeled turnips 

 testing the wind on my forefinger a miracle of phrases

 

 tattered waves 
why must keening tears 
leap as an arc?

 frosty fountain coughing out wars into heads each growing a proboscis

 tears salting a cumbered shell sticking out of cracked earth 

 

 day’s end waves wash into a desert of hairs

 my shadow on impulse walks behind posts

 

 

and like in Pessoa’s room night enters through the window

 

they form and disperse or collapse to form disperse or collapse

in the time of saxophone laden pop songs you bought a brooch and you were sad and it was a seahorse with aquamarine eyes and you put extra gravy on your chips and your best friend had a pet lizard and you liked autumn but you still don’t know what type of lizard it was

 morning fog the rowan nearly a fist emoji

 re-watching the movie you notice the father

 a pigeon coop full of brass instruments

 oswald’s shower curtain we learn to count lichens

 between sips of tea we remember the names of potatoes

 morning ember fanned by a broken word the same gerund snagged in his sigh

 

 wind flapping on open lips a hum in darkened ears dying on the asphalt

  

 set apart by chicken eyes the silence in my neck bone humans and stars

 

now the streets are full of people again the rain’s made homeless

 foaming tears reverse when un-rinsed roses starve the eye

in progress examination of conscience grinding my molars