I think to feel better. I need no
Time to prepare. Lying here

On the floor, the problem is

Never enough, too many
Inches and eons. The program

Loads while the house lights

Fade. Stars, then the computer
Glitches and the wiz

Pushing switches says, ignore

The horizon, restarts and
The universe fills. Burgeon

And strew fool mind into

Seeing all the way
Where space fires and flames

Out, forgetting all can’t be

Twinkle and rapture when
Forever’s dark and cold.

Hayden Planetarium, 2017

Anything but melodic, from the trees
They cacophone in Australian, making me
Want to pin them down, to name
Their othering. They sound more

Annoyed than symphonic, not
Talking about me, but about
What lives in bark and weed, fat
Grubs waiting to be winkled,

Fruit and ripening seed, that bird
Just over there who may be
Ready at last to woo
Or be wooed. The females

Make the decisions about that
Sort of thing, despite the usual male
Postures and clumsy rushes
The females disregard. And when

Their mates go foraging, the females
Look for a little something
Extra, if you know what I mean. For now,
For all I can see, they masquerade

As leaves, or fly so fast they blur,
Or vanish into voice, as if it were
All their lives are worth. Some
Other woman might be tempted

To make sense, to formulate
A fable, or, worse, an allegory –
Birds, noise, who can or can’t
Be seen or might be listening

Or ticked off, I’ve let things
Tend that way – but that would be
Too easy. In real life, a stranger
Crosses grass under trees, being

Her human body, desiring
Just a glimpse, their
Own swift beings making
All the noise they need.

Pacemaker, beta blocker, titanium knee.
We’re kept in comfort at great expense.
Remember yesterday when we were free?

Now appointments fill our week.
Always looking for glasses or pens.
Pacemaker, beta blocker, titanium knee.

You say I can’t hear, well, you can’t see.
Dear, let’s not even mention Depends.
Remember yesterday when we were free?

I look after you, you take care of me.
We’ve been lovers, we’re still friends.
Pacemaker, beta blocker, titanium knee.

Remember how we’d run uphill to see
sunset? We didn’t want the day to end.
Pacemaker, beta blocker, titanium knee.
Did we even know when we were free?

I Downtown

Walter prowls the boat store,
humming. He logs specs
in his pocket notebook, those details
ex-skippers crave: What is that
glass-to-resin ratio . . . a pause
to lick the faltering ballpoint, then
he enters bow pulpit depth—pure
cantilever, enticing a sole.
Hobbling down the wharf,
Walter relives the thunderous wash
of rotors, twisting the dangled harness,
the boat left to founder, his body
calipered from wreckage.
Now the wet slide
of a mitt soaping isinglass
stirs old bones into tremulous
flex, as if where salt clings
he’s finessing the chamois, exacting
shine from each contour,
banishing yellowed film, aye,
until water beads on the surface.

II Support Group

Virginia smells faintly of marzipan, a thin
grandma, in ironed denim, with loose rings
and a shingle of hair—like her speech,
rationed. Her Walter opens
his notebook, the one where he
dreams, in ink, about cruise speeds
in knots, keels, and diesel
and monohulls, each yacht now beyond
what the man can handle. We see
her swallow, twice, then allow
her man to make himself sad
in public—loyalty’s fearful ploy
to revive him—a kind of sustenance,
sweet as crushed almonds, her love
an anchor, bumping along the ocean floor.

late August
and the earth
shifted under his feet

he could feel
the sunlight
change more
angular
dropping shafts
of hazy light
through the branches

the air turned
sweeter somehow
and though very still
it had the feeling
of movement

he knew
that the colors
were on their way
and the winds
of Canada
were piling up
ready to bring
the scent
of northern ice

and his heart
swelled
and remembered
what it wanted most
sitting on his front
porch thinking about
going off to Colorado

maybe there’s
a woman there
who will know
his name

maybe she
will come to meet him
in the high
mountains

he looked around
at the old familiar terrain
the dry fields and
rusting tractors
the longer he sat there
the more Colorado
was disappearing
from his life

would it still be there
if he stayed
one more autumn
maybe but
it wouldn’t be him
in that cabin

you can’t stay
on your front porch
for that