i am prey
i am mammal
pure fear
fires my pistons
my eyebrows
can pupate
i have outgrown
my own hair
earth-bound
descended from the trees
i drink from the gray
breasts of clouds
on hind legs
i hone myself
to the thinness
of a blade of grass
full moonlight at half strength
due to rain
a slow and seemingly deliberate
tapping on the roof
one of the last warm
end-of-summer nights
katydids singing this is it
this is it this is it
this night with its singular pelage
will never come again
let sleep go on without you
like a zombie apocalypse
flying squirrels open
the dark sails of their bodies
a spring peeper calls three times
in defiance of the season
give me shade tolerance
so i can worship the sun
at a cellular level
teach me the dance
in abundance
the sects of insects
how to work like
an artist’s model
with wind or fire
how to mine in place
and turn the soil
into an accomplice
how to communicate
with an alien life form
in speech acts of pure energy
how to grow wound wood
bindweed seeds get high
in a gray squirrel’s gut
Convolvus winding
into a green sky
the ghetto of goldfinches
and spiderling balloonists
boundless
squirrel like a primate ancestor
what gets traded away
for a gift of visions
which buried treasure maps
slip from memory
allowing scatter-
hoarded acorns to sprout
in your gray squirrel mind-
turned-world
Deep in the woods, a small sun-starved blueberry bush is having its best year ever: it produced a flower for the first time—a perfect yellow bell!—and a forest bumblebee with pollen on her feet found its nectar. Now the green berry swells.
What bird will find it when it assumes the color of the sky? How far might its seeds travel? That’s how suddenly the future can change on you.
forest floor
striped with shadows
swallowtail
I was flying in an aircraft of bones
not the pilot not the ball-turret gunner
I was flying in an aircraft as if
in my own bones
my aluminium hide
the captain’s intercom voice
goes all through me and the flight
attendant’s safety instructions
her boredom buzzes against my rivets
like a trapped wasp
but I rise hungry to exceed myself
I dip a wing and turn
out from the lit grids of suburbs
with their unlikely multitude
of shadows which must be trees
and down there somewhere
I don’t remember the dream that woke me, just that it seemed suddenly very important to breathe, and to go on breathing. To go on, despite fear, loneliness or depression. I thought of a stone I’d found on a walk that was too charismatic to just toss aside but which I knew I had no reason to keep, since I’m in the process of moving out (or was, before the pandemic hit). I put it in my pocket, and a moment later took it out again and set it down beside the trail for some child to find, with its red mineral heart outlined in yellow. I thought of Charles Simic’s definition of a stone as a mirror that works poorly.
brachiate
as if my lungs too
might leaf out
Trees sway like drunks
in a sudden gust of wind—
the clacking of their branches.
The whole hillside
is in motion around me,
standing here with my head cold
almost gone.
How marvelous it is
just to breathe.
The squirrel says: the trees
in which I have slept
are the color of the sun.
Leafless now and clear
all likely pathways. The tree peers
bleary-eyed through every scar
that used to be a leaf,
she is stiff and cold
and full of old voices.
I rub my face and neck against
her bark: wake up!
My tail trembles.
I am rainwater running
up and down the trunk,
from tree to tree I am wind
leaping, making the treetops sway.
I never thought I would give up my life so easily,
I was taken back by your words and held onto them tightly.
Now I still hold onto them, although I look at them with no trace of thought,
I was never happy with you, I was scared and frail,
You taught me many things, and told me I didn't deserve most of life itself.
I had wished that I had put my life aside that day, but now I crave being alive.
I crave seeing my future, and where it will take me.
I look forward to seeing my partner and speaking with them.
I am older and decided to save myself from the darkness your finger tips had held.
My chest doesn't hurt before I sleep
I want to live
I want to decide for myself
I want to love and hold my hands out
We have both moved on for the best
I am happy
You are happy
We are happy
Not together, but the love for each other is loud enough like a scream on a early morning
Your voice telling me "you have someone better now".
You're right I do have someone better
You tell me "you cry as if it's the end of the world"
No, I cried like that because I was with you
Now I haven't cried once because of the person I have now
I have not cried because of the people who surround me now
You talk about someone new and it pains me in my chest,
Not because I wish I could be her
Because I wish happiness for you
I then realize I have found happiness in my self and others
My friend just told me he's suicidal-
Not again,
I think as I hold in my tears.
Losing someone is hard,
But losing someone when you know you could have helped
Is like having someone rip out your heart.
He thinks not being alright is bad-
If that's true, I'm living the worst life anyone's ever had.
Of all my friends,
Only two are really okay.
There's the one I tell everything,
And the one I'm still trying to make.
They both know I'm not at my best,
But they still treat me like someone who's fine.
I think it's cause they know being hurt is fine,
And that it's okay not to be okay.