Poetry

I say archetype, but I really mean
messenger.

When I scarcely know what error of mind
made all brick, stucco, ravine, ale, and song fail
and all floorboards flee except 

It hit me in a noisy bistro—

the muted frequency— 
Jimmy Cobb’s brushes were fine sand

I can still see it, just a touch of what
you might call its lip, or maybe a long knife-ready
underbelly. The sturgeon moon is swimming

In the great Archaeological Museum of Naples, 
I visited Flora—force 
behind everything that flowers—a fresco 

Something quick and wet on my neck.
I whipped around, and right behind me
in the lunch line: Mary-Arkansas Greene,

No tide pools, no couples on the beach
where my parents met,

only whitecaps bowing and lifting,
until each blurs into itself.

[…]

Within the hush of birch medallions, 
fir fingers, wild scallions—
that company of dancers held 

Channel, brook, stream—call it a river
that flows past the hospital
in different shades and seasons of blue,

Time to pick berries. This strain (pink when ripe
instead of black) surprises me each August,
although I should be used to it by now.