Near Miss
I swerve when I hear the doctor’s words,
the news of her 26 cancerous lymph nodes
crosses the line and veers into my lane
the impact like an oncoming car
Poems
Miracle Worker, Metamorphosis, Form 42
I’m sitting across from a watery-eyed man with a tight-lipped smile—
there’s a faded ink stain on the cuff of his painfully white dress shirt,
and his glasses don’t quite sit right on his face.
I tell him about the time I stuck my fingers around a candle wick,
Song of Ocean
every day at edge of the wood
i turn and take that same trail
down past the large pines
through thicket and sedge
where very little light gets through
How many breaths
“How many breaths will It take to calm down. Surely it’s the deep ones. There’s been several shallow ones to no avail”
Embrace
“Caduceus. It rhymes with my father’s name, Lucius, which also dates back to ancient Rome.”
The gathering tree
“The gathering tree, on every branch birds talk, laugh—unknown occasion”
Horses of Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone
“Horses stood waiting at the top of the canyon in the dark. They knew Chief Joseph would bring his people up.”
Waggle Dance
“but a bee found me pulled me up into the light sweet as nectar turn it into sustenance for the soul”
summer solstice
“summer solstice floating between grass and sky the lovers’ hammock”