Selected Poems

DRIVING THROUGH STORMS

Two mice skittle and escape my tires.

A white skunk waddles along the yellow line

and then I almost hit a cat. Electric lines writhe

in the road and the radio turns

to static. Peace. For a moment.

I am thankful. And then the sky, punk with rocks,

throws hailstones. A tree explodes.

It snows. Floods fill the streets with icebergs

and storms become magnificent beyond measure.

The sun. The sun. The green. The ice.

The hail. The snow. The sun. The mice.

—from LOOSESTRIFE FOR PORCUPINES

OTHER SINS MORE DEADLY

I wish to be a three-toed sloth,

so on my head when I fall into sleep,

a researcher might place a Petri dish

of water (blessed by every known religion);

to sleep with all assurance that sleeping

is divine; to wake and show

that through the night I’d kept the dish aligned;

to stay ignorant of jungle news;

mirror-eyed, bemused;

to fecundate my silky loves sparingly,

be slow to mate; to live

in the world, disguised as the world,

unnoticed as a stone, and so sprawl

moss-like in a tree, aging inconceivably.

 —from NIGHTLY, AT THE INSTITUTE OF THE POSSIBLE

 .

RADIANT

Chernobyl teems without us

        multiplied and multiplying

as if a burden has been lifted from the earth–

                                    birch feathers   albino crows

swarms of dragonflies              

     and giant wolves returned from folk tales

to trot through streets turned back 

                                    to fecund green

                  different shades of wind

one cement sarcophagus   

                       an aging testament to intellect

                  in coolant canals, catfish breed

 twice the size of men                    

                  ––a desperate Eden builds again.

—from LOOSESTRIFE FOR PORCUPINES