Fading Youth

Two moons steam
over the city:

the end of a horse's

snout.

It is one of those nights
that begs you

to imagine the world

beneath the cobblestone.

The silhouette
of bricks and metal,

an occasional branch

from the surrounding forest

Beckons eyes skyward.
And somewhere in the middle

Mid-ground, stage left,
a child wrapped like a mummy,

rapt in the permafrost,

                      eyes like daggers.

H. sapiens

I look at how
the man has become.

In the 80s

he used to carry
a briefcase

and walk

like a tooth
pick. Tan leather,

disco awkward.


Awkward
when he ripped

off the leather.

The village,
moon-awesome.

The pallor

of human flesh gone
ape-shit

into the ether.

The Page

Today,
like a manatee

with 2 human hands

prying
at the earth.

This is the moment

of the caterpillar.
the moment

of a leaf

between its branch
and the ground.

A single page

of life's story
with its high beams

on you,

skeleton black
eyes of autumn.

Raspberries

*
I don't know
whether to think

it was a good
thing or a bad

thing, but as I came
by with the blower,

the bird's
wings opened

and it took flight
one last time

into a sacred raspberry
memorial.


*
A sacred memory:

The summer
you reached your hand

out to me
and offered your fruit.

The Egg Van

*
I was stopped
by Barnum
and Bailey's Circus

train. A rainy
September day
in Elkhart, Indiana.

*
I am the stunt
man in the minivan
preparing to jump the tracks.

This is my job.

Unconsummated

For One Thousand
and One Nights I slept
under your half-moon eyes.

Exodus

Did you see the wilderness within me

And come to tear down the sky between us—

My Midwestern dream-face

Shackled in her Arabian Nights.

We shared the Red Sea

on the banks of the Saint Joe.

I wonder, was it Moses who rose

His staff in the air and separated us forever?