THE ACCORDION 

It expands and contracts, 

heaves and moans

no matter 

who the player is. 

While the melody 

might be different 

from squeezebox 

to squeezebox 

the strain’s the same, 

the story’s the same: 

a pain bellows 

beneath breathing.

THE HUE BETWEEN US 

             Colors

             on canvas 

                          mixing,  

                 blending, merging 

                       dissolving 

                       difference. 

         We are like this: 

             dancing dalliance 

                         into 

                     design 

                

                                 into 

                        a new 

                    hue 

                  while somewhere 

           in the dream 

                        play 

                        the painting 

                                    asks: 

                 why are you 

                             here? 

            what have you come 

                 to let go of?

THE MAGICIAN 

There was no tuxedo, 
no top hat,

wand or handkerchief,

rabbit, coin or deck of cards.

Had they been a part 

of his daily routine 

he might have seen himself 

as the magician he was, 

directing his gaze away 

from his own denial. 

Like a disease that does not 

detect its own malignancy

 

his greatest trick was keeping 

his own sorcery from himself. 

Cunning, baffling and powerful, 

the magician was most dangerous 

when forgetting became 

his French drop.

SPECIAL DELIVERY

Though fear 

may have brought them—

the items ordered—
and feels awkward 

and anxious
upon arrival,

it comes with all the ingredients 
for a healing to happen.

Its algorithm, like Instacart’s, 

is an intelligence

that can delivery us 

to the present moment

faster than most things

as long as 

we remain open

to its errand.

AFTER A DOWNPOUR,

nature’s tears 

bejewel a cobweb, 

beading 

every intersecting line 

with the intricacy of 

Idra’s net. 

a breeze turns 

the silken finery

into a breath 

between branches 

and the tiny worlds 

of water within into 

a shiver, a sigh. 

so many reflections, 

vicissitudes of sameness 

shimmer across 

a single design, 

consciousness, cosmos. 

oh, to be this porous, 

self-satisfied 

and present 

to the harmony of one.

TEACHER 

Sometimes

it is so hard

to see 

that you are there,

that the lesson

I am meant to learn

I am already

in the middle of, like

some grade school equation 

that has me 

at the front of the room

squirming, sweating and scribbling.

But I don’t see any of this:

you, my hieroglyphics, my bumbling fingers

pressing the nib of chalk

into the cosmos of the blackboard.

I am too busy 

being the problem 

instead of the solution.

And that’s the real problem to solve.

THE MIRAGE

At times, emotion 

and feeling

radiate off us 

like heat waves

from dunes 

in the desert.

Though others

see these emanations

as fear or anger

and become entangled

with them, they are 

nothing more

than mirages, a heaving thirst 

for a deeper love

that arises like a gas

from the salt 

in the sand,

from an oracle 

in the earth-wound,

from the trauma terra firma 

living in the body-mind

of flesh, bone and blood.