Sonnet

Call this night visible. A hat:
a feature

a side of afternoon's rouged cheek.

This dizziness may only be felt in two instances:
Now, as when you are sick, or now
as when you are in love. Sleepiness,
that gaudy purple
or simply that which matches night.

Regarding the seas we wade through
it is not surprising that the floor is coated in starfish,
hardening.

Part One:

approach her hands like the light balanced
delicately on her tongue

Funeral (Love or Any Other Sorrow) (next revision!)

Here you are, epitaphs:

Once there was a world

And the world was gone

Sleep, then, and tell us of birth:

Long ride down slopes

Of January's leaves,

Magnesium-colored world.

If a wolf were to hunt me,

And I, fearful submission,

Our eyes would lock

Tearing forever at the question, When.

Love is carved in so many places.

Hands like parchment.

Eyes like parchment.

300 Years

A man's heart only breaks when it cannot.
He hears but only shortly
after his mouth has closed like a buttoned-up fish:
Here are the sewing stitches, flood songs.
It is the job of a man to know what comes,
what he should do, so that he may hide.
Otherwise it's up to him; it's upon himself
to deflect all hatred. Men are elk.

A man's heart only breaks when it cannot.
Because he said, How dare you,
and because he said, my people suffered
for three hundred years
and you're complaining he said, about a long day.
It rocks back and forth scratching itself as if never hearing.

You can't eat the heart, though that is a man's job.
In those four dark
chambers where a man can be kept years.

Stray (it's a weird one...here we go!)

Beautiful snow and
babies, about old enough to stand with help
and curious, shocked at newness enough
to walk; Don't stray too far from mommy.

These are winter. Ordering tea
at lunchtime, or some time
between then and dinner, weighing
snow between fingers, like
a different way of doodling
though wanting--more profusely now--
to snap photos, to hear dogs smiling
at the snow, to scoop up a handful
of coats and set them down
next to love, which is a deer
wisping at the sight of man.

It is like figuring out the hardest thing
about almonds. Spreading seeds
around the ground and trusting
nature to go about its business.
Music is a more modern way to
peruse a street at night, or
grasp some figure close and bundle up.
Soon, a letter to the editor will read:
the most difficult thing about almonds is that
time won't let them weighed inside your hands.
People walk away from my snow-dusted street
like laughing potatoes rolling down hills.