Petrichor at Dawn
“Candles”
i dreamed it was your
birthday. seventeen candles
on an ashy cake.
“Livable Diorama”
Only colors travel where you are -
some livable diorama whose cardboard is
damp with heavy, grimy fog.
Lugging up the stairs, the radio hums -
rock and classical.
Then a littered milk glass, tabloid, and comb,
soaked in solemn blue, and your figure on the bed
breathing deeply, fading deeply.
“Cocoon”
In the midst of summer
I wake. Humid orange light.
A true sky behind the screen door.
A wave passes like a blur, a glitch.
I sleep again, wrapped in a snug cocoon.
“Bleach”
sheets of noisy tin
a brush with buttermilk gunk
the stinging begins
“My Dog Predicted the Rain”
My dog predicted the rain,
sitting by the cold glass pane
waiting for cement to seep dark
while dry-hooded cars remained parked.
Before drops bounced off my bike saddle
and a falling branch made a drumming rattle
warningly as the neighbors moved in
who couldn’t see the weather about to spin.
Before the world turned orange and gray
before the puddles flatly lay
before I, or my parents, or my neighbors could say
my dog sat patient, tranquil, content
with knowing eyes
and predicted the rain.
“Little Star”
Twinkle twinkle, little star
how I wonder, how you are
twinkling up there, up there high
like a sky scar, so so far.
Where were you then? Where have you gone?
I mazed the glass doors and mirrors and all.
There was nothing but a ring, ring.
A call for the dancing little dot,
pick up, you trailing little thought,
Soon, soon, before the animals around the bathtub
fall to foam.
