We are Houses; We Sink and Leave Doors Open Past Dusk

This mothering instinct is a rust colored
variety of gathered clouds and chain-link
fences in piles by the side of our
white house.

Even the leaves rust away & brown
and orange spots on the railing.
I am not sure I know how to stop it
because I leave nests in the windows.

‘Oxidizes’ was vocabulary a pigeon
would vocalize, whose feathers
are more dust than lightning bugs.

With the hornet sting, I ask for endurance
and try to hold the red bump until
the same rust colored clouds
take your skin away/

peel at our eyelids (from the underside)
(and mostly the same color
when not sleeping
on the ride
home.)

I did not try to care for you
and gave nothing for the sting.
Your sad and slightly curious blue
eyes corrode my skin, or

what I thought was soon
to brown to dust.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to my apple and bit my tongue

Tongue (not macintosh)
is another planet reappearing;
incisors mash heavy muscle pulse
and warm your head.

Like seeing the the sun a white
(black) dime in the pond,
glittering too directly
for one small processing unit.

Flip. I
will not stare
into the black hole
in the water.

I will not
redden my eyelids
while pond pulls lost
maple leaves to dam.

Do you see the rest
holding ecstatic sunlight
with pines and birches?
tangible;

how you are not afraid
they are watching your feet.
Your bitten tongue is a crust
of dry leaves at the dam,

modest sun
snail-
mailing planets
back to you.

she says we won’t delicately place our feet so we clear trails

They have laid out the view for us.
Blue mountains and clouds
even pile the stones neatly,
let them become moderately
covered in lichens.

A parking lot is paved before
a hill with thin timbered trees.

Take your time; a trail
rests within itself below, hundred
feet folding the dirt
in on itself over in a
green tunnel in Appalachia– just
to watch a wall of individual
leaf shapes flit and bow in
a bit of water and wind.

All here mentions
if we stretch our legs far enough
the traits we find become trails
in a small place with intrusive
curious bumblebees. It is good
to have some friendly company.

It is good to have preparative
breeze and easy rain.

canned vegetables

Listen,
You say all we want
is the same.
We’re stuck in these
cauliflower walled apartments
listening to your gamble
for better cars and sleek
phones and kale kamut kombucha
don’t throw that out it’ll last
forever in the landfill
Listen, we couldn’t
throw it out if we wanted to.
The wrappers of three-hundred
days ago chokehold the threshold
of our businessman designer dreams.
I told you, all we
need is the same. Our
kids are sitting by
the bustop. They’re kind
I swear it, want
to see the world.
From Mr. Button’s windows
From Bess Eaton
From next order up
Sees the neighborhood
seize the corner store
and we can’t keep
the arms away from
our big brown eyes
for too long. Those
big brown eyes will
save our sorry
we tried souls
but had to find
a dollar from
something. Will
save a dollar and
head to the goodwill
for a broken
in pair of sneakers. Will
save a dollar but
teacher can’t share
what’s green in value either.
Listen. It’s not
money. I don’t care
my clothes smell like
old women mothballs. Maybe I’d
be less respectable
if I smelled Marc Jacobs
PINK Desperation. That’s
if we smell anything
besides our landfill
is almost full, you know
and that’s not a glass
filling up with wine
or filtered water I think
we’re figuring this
out before we all
forget these are walls
in St. Elizabeth’s memory
care unit.

[Trying to dream walk]

Trying to dream walk
into fog (lush).
Myself going into trees with
gray intermediate.
Myself going in and going
in one after another lush
intermediate (I am) walking
in one after trees after
one. Trying to go into
myself. Going into fog into
intermediate into dream.
Dream into dream (lush) fog
and trying the lush intermediate
(gray) I am trying (fog) and
trying to go intermediate (trees)
and going myself into
one.

Shenandoah is a quiet place

Radio voice is a dark interruption.
We, no more
than static (escaped)
from river & woods &
going back.

Interrupts day (ride)
where roads and conver-
sations are finely spilling
clouds or just plain null.

Float from mountains,
like dust, the way our tires
pile as ash and grazing
cows will pile as ash.

The way his eyes hide behind
a hat brim, how she
misses you at 3a.m.

The road is quiet at 3
but not this dense, as if
on the verge
(loss)
(numbers roll)

like roads
mountains or
radio

finds a place
in darkness like
a barred
owl.

enough to be lucky

Dead speak; asking is water
a crushing spirit
after all?

Rain sings softly (insatiably)
to my eyelashes.

We didn’t know the body
was a tool;
Flute
Bassoon
Bagpipes in the rain;

I am on the verge of a broad
barren drone of cars behind
our patch of trees and vines.

Less than half of us
drive to Dairy Queen
for a treat.

Country Living

Walmart had a sale on kiwis and
as if I’d been filled to the brimming
point with cow folk, I
did not need a package
of tropical fruit.

Instead, I paid for a nearly rotted
grapefruit at the next door Food Lion.
Boy, did that fruit low like a
sweat bee for my bristling tongue.

Moving into a House with Two Mice, Stinkbugs, and a few Curious Ants

black back ant slips beyond
wrinkles in my paper bag:
Whole Foods and grease stained,
full of tea (Ilex paraguensis).

Canned applause in
the next room / behind
wooden corners in brown, green shadows, layered white paint
doorways. Don’t eat
even if the walls taste like mint.

Don’t pick on the remnants
of rust/crusted/cracked/worn.
Soon they won’t be yours.
Or, if you can’t carry the whole
house, don’t throw out all
of your paper bags.

Music, abstracted

Music in a room warms
your blood,
splits your dry lips so
one round red drop
(an island)
escapes;
Waves of strings, or loops

The composer, you recall
asking instead of fries, a side
of broccoli, covered in mustard,
her music in a room full
of loops or strings, splits
your dry lips, so

one small red
drop escapes
an island

asking instead of the chandelier
Danger, danger;
the afterlife is here:
by white folding
chair legs, music

splitting your
dry island, a side of red
loops, or strings
saying warm, instead your
round blood.