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

 

  

skimming bridge waters a collared cloud

 fault in a tourniquet an inundation

 

 sunk in darkness words long dead in the telling

 

 following instructions we make ears for wasps

 listen the unraveled whimpers from an ingrown silence coiled in a diary 

 wakened to drips on her brush blue water coating sheep bells

 the cosmos flowers like it or not  even in cracked persimmon suns

 

  

just caught a soft glimmer from a  foot-stabbed sun dial in the dark 

 his arrhythmic heart
on a treadle…
does the weaver know?

 until the air comes clear again flat in the layered stillness

 

 long day in the rose bush another finger bleeds 

  

on a curb dog burying trampled flowers shrinking soil 

 through a wave of hearts the pineapple emoji

 fresh shave you become a good heron

 mermaids the fingerprints of fiddles

 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