Outside the Children’s & Maternity Thrift Shop
Outside the children’s & maternity thrift shop
stood the little girl with her dog
looking down at the wet sidewalk.
The worms are dying, she said,
dragging each syllable through sad honey,
which startled me—
I was not expecting to be addressed,
having forgotten the gift of perception
that children often possess.
So I stood a moment with her looking
for something to say.
They’ll make a good snack for the birds,
I offered, on which she chewed a moment
before scrunching up her face at her dog.
They wont make a good snack for you, Roger!
and just like that death moved on
as did I, in the same direction.
Mudder
I want
it so much
I can’t keep
my fingers
that something big can vanish
behind something small
Morning Walk By Admissions In Middle Age
The cracks in the pavement
I understand to be growing.
Healthy Lamoille Valley says
I can win
with a strong mind and body!
white clouds cast grey spots on
green mountains.
To my face the sun says
something
to my back the wind
another.
The rusted manhole
cover reads electric,
the light gleaming
from a steel roof
I mistake for water
and walk toward.
Registry of Ephemerals
blind mud blinks
registers mud
stretches and scans
itself for items
it can afford
coltsfoot, bloodroot, spring beauties
purchased before the inflation of leaves
a collection plate of devotions
which is to say poems
makings
fits into itself like a key broken
in a lock fixed a moment
before the final thaw
floods the library
Books I am currently reading:
