a hunger

there's a hunger
that bores holes

without scarring
that eats portions

of the day yet
is left unfilled

I unwrap your name
and you spill

through my hands
and stain my feet

chant

silence reverberates
at this hour

when monks chant
and birds are deep

in dreams of eggs
and owls

and my mind hunts
for moorings

in the dusty footprints
of yesterday

wild daisies

we kissed
in the old cemetery

filled with the scent
of wild daisies

felt the blessings of flesh
and we wondered

without words
how it will be

or if we would still know
when we lay underground

the feel of the sun
or the love songs of robins

resurface

It's a cold morning
that smells of death

the news speaks
of eco collapse

in the middle
of the century

and images of
the plague years

resurface
in this species brain

we insist
on denying

as if we were
bodiless thoughts

scurrying from one satellite
to another

becalmed

we're invisible waves
in a becalmed sea

potential beings
filled with desires

that flame like ghosts
without voices

stretched

muscles line up
stretched and on fire

at the street corner of bones
waiting for a bus out of town

in this not young day
and older night

as if I know

I pour the day
into my bowl

along with the cereal
without thought

as if I know
its contents

and which spoon
to use

shadow

I want to touch you
so you walk

outside my head
and make a shadow

and I can look
where you've been

and step
in your footprints

and taste you
in the air

your face

your face is ink
married to a page

I wait for it to speak
to expand a smile

it remains lifeless
like a slot machine

without coins
or an unborn day

cranes

shadows

there are passages at sea
when we see land

at a distance
a dark ghost on the horizon

humped like the back of a whale
with trees growing along the spine

separations are like that
when our longings loom

like night shadows
on the skin of the sun

discontent

this ache
that never leaves

that we learn
to butter like toast

and give it
pet names

and pretend
it's tamed

and step around it
in our minds

waits for us
this divine discontent

that flares up
when light pours

from your eyes
and I drown

bird of paradise

the flower appears
the laughter of God

as a play of color
and form

a smile of petals
that sing

of birds tasting
the sun

and the glow
of wing feathers

a drum roll
of orange against blue

of the unfathomable
dropped into the day

lemons

there are lemons in the sun
big as grapefruits

that drag branches
to the ground

drunken flies crash into
besotted bees

and tumble down
golden skins

wasps plunder
fallen fruit

and I look up
lost in shape and color

with last year's taste
on my lusting tongue

virus

being ill is like sewage
in the brain

thoughts die in the
effluence of a virus

the walls of the day
fall down

one is left naked
on a sterile plain

hunkered down
in open air

curved around
the faltering moment

old photo

I find the old photo
in the pages of a book

and look at a me
I never knew

green tea

you are like green tea
I sip through the day

I want to bathe in you
and taste your sun

you arrive
measured in cups

interspersed
between desire

and the ticking moments
we tread

between sunrise
and sunset

car trouble

car trouble and the skin
of the day rips open

one thread breaks
and the fabric unravels

neighbors must be called
to take us to the grocery

options skid down drains
and we stuff our day

with walkable moments
and daydreams of donkeys

further

I shed my dream mind
in the middle of lines

step into the sheets
entangled in words

in a flutter of images
sticky as spider silk

that fade into air
before I can write them

sleep is not rest
but a journey into further

to this place
of malleable bodies

where I am an eagle
tasting the sun