“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.