Shifter’s Dream
Oh, to sleep at night!
To have the night-light moon
to share my dreams. And stars
in their infinity holding back the day.

To sleep
with no jack-hammered
neighbor’s insistence,
no phone calls breaking into REM,
nor half-truth answers, “No, I wasn’t
asleep.”

To have the sun gently
with its kitten-paw play
nudge at toes and knees
before batting my face
with its warmth.

Oh, to sleep at night!
To sleep
at night.

On Testing Positive

Don’t look
at angry men
resigned to padded beds
and lounging chairs.
Turn yourself
from swift-tongued women
caught in fearsome cotton-balled explosions.

The curtain cannot hide the commode,
and ears aren’t made for acrobatics.

This day will come.
Remember youth’s abundance
its jelly rolling and long eyelashes,
the triumphs of bedding a new spouse.

In The Garden

Saturday Morning

Bring the Sun Down

Bring the sun down
past the fir tree sentinels,
tramp it down
beneath the fresh laid sod.

Sit here on the stoop
and whisper with me
until fifty stars are counted
and I will light the oil lamp.

The day has released its weight
into a glittering mobile.
Hear my lullaby
and leave the world to slumber.

sugar maple leaves

A huddle of smoke backed up
against the leeward side of McGintry’s,
an overflow of patrons
air-writing anger or laughing
in tag-team fashion
unfazed by the screech of tires
turning the corner of Aiken Ave.,
the spill of arms
from a passenger side window,
the firecrackers,
Bobby’s drunken stumble from the curb.
Until the fall--
and sugar maple leaves
on a silk shirt.

clear

the tone
of wind chimes,

or soprano solo,

the trickling stream
uncivilized,

child’s lung,

pristine quest.


Clear,

A crash cart cry,
flourish, burn,

a seizing, searing fight,

an angel’s flight.