Poetry

Dawn boils up like milk, cloudy with disrespect.
Like Tin Pan Alley hacks, paid for each line,
neighborhood wrens bang out their high-pitched notes.

Winter at the end of the trail,
where the Columbia washes the ocean,
what one book calls The Kingdom of Conifers,

This pain is so familiar
(we were all children once)
I let it ride my back. I offer it in,

It’s coming to you live: the high-rise ledge
That doubles as a desolate precipice
In a pinch. It’s all raw footage,

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things

Children,
when I am ash
read by the light of the fire
that consumes me

The poem that argues successfully against death
finds its place in the book you can buy
in stores that do not sell poetry.