Poetry

No thoughts to say about the moon. The novelist jokes about not being a poet. I feel the lie.

Night, only barely. The shadow
of a bird has just tucked itself
into yonder branches. A black
feral cat skulks his way behind
the hydrangeas, which soon
will bloom.

Skull-faced Venus impales you. Chalchiuhtlicue, Goddess of the East. Venus, West. Directions, too, in conflict. War inside creates war outside. All the outsides. All the insides.

One by one the neighborhood songbirds visited
and stripped us of our brightest threads of pain

carrying them off for purposes that we couldn’t
quite fathom. So we got a dog, felt a little better.

Ixchel, I feel you crossing. Night womb. Tell me where the seeds go.

Alex, do you think God appreciates us
this time of year, going out

in knit maroons, black leather? I’m still no good
at smoking but I liked best the part of your party

Starlings know to veer. Anatomically attuned to each premonition of each starling. Sacred space.

Okay so when we were little playing in the woods
every time we heard a gunshot hollow and clear

my brother would clutch his chest and fall over
every single time and it worked every time

Pink millions of passenger pigeons slammed the sun shut again and again for fifty thousand years. Above the Ohio River, a solar eclipse for three days straight as one flock passed over. 

of the dead a million years of age-related faults / danger war hunger lust the extinct fallen stars / everything living falters is always on the verge