INSTRUCTIONS

Abandon them

along with

any prescriptions

for the way things

ought to be.

Rid yourself of

the compulsion

to control.

Any voices

you hear

inside yourself

angling for

hard-won outcomes,

feed them like seeds

to the finches.

Then wait

for the song

to emerge.

A melody will come—

and with it

instructions

you are meant to follow

and ones actually

worth listening to.

TERRIOR

I have tasted

this terrain 

before. I have been 

under its influence.

I have harvested

its foul fruit.

So I can’t say

this landscape is

terra incognita.

I can’t.

I am the conditions

I create.

I am the grape

grown.

The character 
of the crop

is all in 
how we farm.

FIRE

There’s an eye in it

A breath in it

An ocean in it

A gong in it

Who’s doing

the watching

the breathing

the crossing

the sounding?

Who’s fanning

the flames

with questions

and the questions

with flames?

ESCAPE

Men at work

outside my window.

Clattering and clanging.

Repairing

the metal ladder

that hovers there.

An exit

if the building

catches fire.

THE PREDATOR QUESTION

It spies me

through the tall grass,

from the high branches

of a gnarly oak,

from the crossing guard's stop sign

at the corner,

from the back row of a Cineplex,

from inside my rearview mirror,

while I am at the checkout stand at BevMo,

and as the waitress pours my coffee

the morning after. It stalks me 

daily, has me in its cross-hairs,

moves as I move

like a shadow

that knows me better

than I know myself.

It is waiting to ambush me

when I least expect it.

It is the question I can’t  

ask, because its gaze

will swallow me whole

like a hungry hypnosis.

It is watching me even now

as I type these words.

These letters are

periscopes belonging to

the shape of something

just beneath the surface.

These keystrokes are 

the eyes of a leviathan  

living inside 

a deeper inquiry

that lurks fathoms down

in the dark.