GHOSTS

I make ghosts.

From the things

I won’t say.

From the things

I haven’t given you

a chance to say.

They look like us.

Walk and talk

like us. They are

us. They are

hollow

in their silence.

Shadows emptied 

of song.

 KIND OF BLUE

There is a music in me

that needs to be tempered.

It's too strident, 

too brassy.

If I was Miles Davis

and the song was

“My Funny Valentine,”

I’d know what to do: I’d mute it.

That’s the tone,

the timbre I’m after.

A quiet kind of blue.

Strength in fragility.

CAT TOY

It dances in the air.

Twirls and flutters.

It entrances, casts its spell.

A wild frenzy ensues—

all because of a talent

to tease and toy.

What did Emily Dickinson say?

Hope is the thing with feathers.

There was hope, at first,

until the illusion wore off

and all that remained was

a few paltry plumes,

a string and a stick.

I am the cat

in this story.

There was never a bird.

Hope molted before

my desiring eyes.

THIS FERTILE WORLD

Begonia blossoms,

butterflies at dusk,

eggs inside of Armadillos—

this is a fertile world

filled with premonitions

and civil wars.

Let’s pit lovers against poachers

to try to keep it safe—

and then go on watching

the memories we haven’t had yet

from underneath flimsy umbrellas

in a century of rain.

And the rooster…we mustn’t forget

to set it free

before the gamblers come

to cart it off

to the cockfight.

All we need is

an ingot’s worth

of imagination

and some parchment

to translate

nocturnal sweats

into couplets of grace

penned with the poison

from a scorpion’s tail.

Time is nothing more than
learning to foxtrot in iron shoes.