My skin dreams flowers
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Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
Just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
--ranier marie rilke


sun in october, soft upon the roof
down of bird's nest. with each
passing season, permutations.

iron turtle and rust. the bromelaides bloom
for the first time in two years. much rain
and shadows in this mending home.

the big out
there,
cingling
to shredding
pattern


you and i are mismatched
we know it. but so? somalia
with its mud cakes, but yeah?

unclear how this might
survive fema trailers
or the next third world.

when i live in the past
there are regrets.
when i live in the future
i see a seed, blossomed.
as if it already occurred and who's
to say it hasn't? there is time

that's what these squirrels say.
it's right now. speaking plainly

there are days when the guts fall
out of the highway, when the train
is crossing and recrossing, when
the semaphores just refuse to rise.

there are days when to hold
the possible hand is too much to need.

we cover each other in sand
and settle into the warming
even as clouds scuttle the sun.