February 2019

I must be the heavy globe
of hydrangea, always bowing
by summer’s end. Must be salt,
like sadness at a burning city,
an ethical disobedience. I must be
a violet thorn of fire. These days
I don’t taste good, but I must
be singing and boneless, a...

A scherzo of thumbnail butterflies, white ones,
Covers the hillside. God is more
Adorable than music. Nevertheless,
On a given morning, as the wind drops,
Music pries Heaven apart from itself,
Like flowers beneath the wings unfolded on them.

Every breeze is self-registering.
This morning, I walked...

I know something about godforsaken places.
Walking on the beach alone, far from the Dead Sea,
I thought I saw a horseshoe crab crawling slowly—
it was a Gideon Society, black Bible cover.
Another time, washed up on a Montauk dune,
I found a Chianti...