Wandering Poem

Clear water rises,
retreats over dark
stone. The lights
of the city beat
faint patterns
in the gleam
of a silver
bracelet. A teenage
girl is lost
among the bars.

Wherever I have
been, I have been
without words,
remembering
these leaves turning
over as they
descend, exhale
of days through which
we fall like
water into a division
of hours. Somewhere
there must be peace
like the idea
of horses.

~

I want to touch
the fine lines
thinking makes
inside the body—
fierce
thinness
like the light
of a door
closing.

~

Loneliness in us
grows smooth
like a stone
as days pass
over it. We learn
its voice. It’s not
our particular
curse, our curse
is we’re always
in danger of
reminding someone
of their own—

the wind, too,
is a conversation
that outlasts
any of its dialects.

~

Windows dream
TV light
into snowfall. Someday
you’ll lie down
like a river
in the moment
of freezing and hold
the shape
of your last thought.

~

As a child, you chased
a hawk’s shadow
across muddy leaves
in an empty plot—
stopped
to watch it turn
in stitchless blue,

breath caught, your life
on loan to you.