Scene from a suburban childhood

Dandelions form sunspot archipelagos in the green seaas their seeds float like clouds over the waves of grass.Ants form shoals and, in the black loam beneath,worms and no-eyed creatures of the deepgo about their dark business. Lady bugsand bumblebees flit from island to island. A squirrel breaches. I lie in the middle of the lawnand

On the Trail at Night

Spreading Phlox covers the rocks, its buds all closedand flickering in the wind like the dim white flamesof ten thousand candles. Happy birthday to this cliff-side.Overhead, vespers bats hunt. They eat up the evening. A white tailed jackrabbit emerges from her rest in the brush,her wide, wild eyes shining with the glint of moon. Her

Garden of Delights

We’ve befriended beetles in the lush landscapeof the drainage ditch, foliage overhead spreading,shrubs’ rubbery fronds, long-reaching leaves,sure shelter from thunder. I’ll hide underthe gentle perennial’s petals, red and wrappedaround a powdery pistil. You soak in the coolwaste water that feeds the flowers. Rootssoothe the old soil. My mouth makes the shapeof April. Your corridors are

After Marosa di Giorgio

A ridge of pines overlooked the popcorned heads of bright green deciduous.The pines were a gathering of mourners all in black; they wept flakes of birds, buntings plummeting like pearls.In their forest, I hit rocks against rock, until I drilled a hole big enough to climb into.Jewel-backed bugs formed orderly lines into earth burrows.We awaited

Artificial Sweetener To Put It Another Way

Turned my Day 13 poem into a contrapuntal!

For my superpower I pick pausing time

knowing I would screw everything upif I were allowed to time travel. But a pause feels innocent, innocuous. I can nap every day with no guilt,enjoy a sunset as long as I please.I can catch up on all the showsI was always too busy to watch,play the entire trove of video gamesI’ve collected and never

Enter, Sun!

Enter, sun! Fill the window with light from your perch93 million miles away. Warm the bricks of the house.Bleed, bricks! Leech your heat into the wall, into theroom, the bed where this body lies on clean sheets.Rise, spine! Click each vertebra into its place, alignyourself perpendicular to the floor. Hold this body.Again, feet! Again you

Indigo

after a while, indigo buntingscome to gorge on seeds. delicateblue feathers coat their edges and their songsare bright with anger, fear, and longing.I’ll never feel joy like them. I could chipat the sky and fill my belly with blue, and still my bones will never be hollow,still I will never sprout wings. the huckleberries are

AquariumTok

We’re discussing the shortform video contentthat the Algorithms have been serving uslike some kind of soup or slop or stew(we can feel our minds softeninginto a kind of warm porridge).One kind of video everyone seems to be watchingis “rating the scoopability” of fancy slimes. I can’t waitfor two years from now when no one will

Lost in Thought

Out in the alley, dandelions shaketheir manes of pollen and memorieshunt me. The icicles have left a jaggedemptiness on the jaw of the house. Wind tousles the dust. A dark eyedjunco twists its drab head at me.The neighbor’s dog chases somethingaround the roots of a buckeye. My thumb rubs circles into the backof my hand.