incantation (January 2024)

I built this house for us to live in
do not be fooled into thinking
it is made only of words
I have made you a bed of furs
with no blood in them
brought you lemon and whiskey
with wild honey to soothe
the throat of your longing
in daylight panes paneled
as if armor polished
to catch the sun
in the window later I light a candle
so your return may be easeful
in the kitchen I place
berries out of season
dressed in milk from a cow
who let it fall from her mouth
like singing when you enter
without knocking I give you
this garment warped
from the moon’s still eye blinking
in the weft of darkness
robe made with my gold thimble
and invisible stitches
red as the slick of my legs
I fasten it around your waist
in the shadows beneath
these beams made of trees
that remember
they once were both stars and tables

in memoriam 2023

how to love things back
as when you had
no fear of death does not
come like lightening
but out of habit
like a hungry cat
who impatiently mewls
for entry yet
when the door is open
takes uneven steps
forward backward toward
the empty bowl
that waits in all things
refusing to be hurried

aphrodite (January 23, 2024)

you are color
of when an ocean
of sometimes open sky
of when lungs decide
to be as if turquoise
o color of foam
inner and outer robe
wise one born
from a castrated father
equally stars’ shelter
and swan wings’ cradle

ornithology (January 5, 2024)

when I was young I kept
a canary in a cage

I chose her from among
the birds that lived
next to small glass oceans
and coiled leashes

even then I remember
she was solemn
and preferred the edges

at home she brooded silently
in the shit-crusted wicker nest
held by staples to the cage
that had been my great grandmother’s

I named her Vesper
her eggs often broke
shells thin as petals
of white iceberg roses

she did not sing
and I was young
I did not understand
why she was so quiet

but this also does not mean
she did not die
perhaps without ever
having had a chance

to choose a mate
or know the sky

the golden gear, composed and edited June 5, 2023

persistent and moved
only by the golden gear
of its own perpetual motion
the little machine goes
and goes no doubt when I end
if they should choose
to know the cause
they will find it
downy and tapping
against my ribs
once open instantly in flight
freed to follow you
to that green place
your white bones settled down

Kitchen Cabinet, composed 5/17/2023

the wood slats of my kitchen cabinet
long to return to the forest they came from
when I listen they show me a green ocean
that stretched for hundreds and hundreds of miles
not just any ocean you understand
but only this one they knew so well
though they could not name it
that they made their particular home in