Plans
Weigh odds. Pray. Pay bills.
Tell truth. Love well. Serve real gods.
Meanwhile, daffodils.
And That?
Cut forest? A moor.
Drained swamp? A field. Extinct sea?
That’s a prairie. Love?
Fashionable
What world wants, world eats.
Or, like a vast pregnancy
Sometimes, what it needs.
Rock
Dear us, united
In pluck. Pluck plus black luck. Pluck
Deracinated.
Hard Place
Should you feel failure?
You’re not at the best vantage.
Touch wood. Splinters. Braille.
Orrery
Lo! Lord’s swung bola
Circle and parabola–
Love, too, oo-la-la.
TO THE COBBLER WHO PUT THE SQUEAK IN MY BOOT
May you bruit
about churches, crunching croutons,
in starched armor. May your plate suit’s
squeak match mice (your pendant earrings)
well within hearing
of a squadron of peering
finger-wagging, very unhappily
lip-shushing hypercontrarian
librarians.
May you marry one.
May you honeymoon sunning
in traffic, in a cab whose ignition key is ever turning,
while its engine is ever running
