Today

And then there is always this.
How desperate it is to return,
holding so much in the times between.
Excuses like cold, like fables for the moral.
Where else is there water that drips,
a rhythmic knot that thumps close by.
Unwelcome drafts prone to backing away,
why one hand experiences it more than another.
Entire cycles crammed into months, crammed into years.
Falling tendrils like parted hands,
guided by what happens to follow.
I am only here because there is nothing else.
Is it worth knowing the product of others’ invention
and the way they drag the net through what they’ve contained?
How long is the lowering
and what resists against shortened light?
I can hear the words that people speak
and sit in restored rooms,
nodding and sighing
and applauding when my brain catches the signals.
I can walk and stop and pass.
There is no other record,
insular and packaged,
tallied for outside reasons.
Nothing has been kept.
A circle burns in unison
and I go looking for a way to put out half,
a certain threat of instability
and other generalized likes:
to forget this cold that pushes passed the window
and the weakness of prepositions.
Without removing one space,
one inexplicably large waterway and what moves through it.
In the middle where the helm is met.

Today

No outside glance.
Footfalls in competition with duration.
Our green cherries hang generously from above.
The individual speaks of further roads,
unconcerned with one description or another.
My hands heavy and uneventful,
either cupped or isolated,
weighted with impression or uninterest.
These things take time to figure out.
For instance, the way the shingles overlap,
the way they sit across what under it protects.
Sensibility has everything to do with it,
driving through beach front towns made of stone.
The brown pebbles of nature reserves and insects,
houses left to stand alone.

Today

A series of catching up
and people who make
something small feel big.
Unsmooth stones create the floor,
enclosed by picture books
and other stories told with sight.
Unbearing anticipation slows
passing over steps,
placement oblong and specified.
Waist lines in foreign tongues
tucked under, then displayed.
We are working on a story much bigger
involving double doors and old consistencies
We are enlightened by the passing storm
and car rides across the state,
repeating as a manner of keeping