March 2

This a betrayal
how quick the shift

the same sun
breaking through

the same curtains
one day I wake

the next I can’t
clouded by aches

drowning in
myself

and certain
I’ll never

be warm again
and the dog

giving me
that animal

courtesy
afforded to

the good
and sick

avoidance
a good call

really
when I said

betrayal
this wasn’t

what I meant

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March 1

A thin cloud drawn
across the night sky

a cloud
not a jet trail

not as precise
above it the moon

below it
stars

in some celestial
equation

so enamored
am I with this

idea of divination
two of the stars

are traveling
in opposite directions

jetliners
both going

and both leaving
but I wasn’t looking

for something
so obvious

so keen am I
on division

always wanting
to know just

how many times
a thing can go

then wanting
to know

the remainder

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February 28

This night a cave
correctly sized

it blankets
not engulfs

there are tenors
to a darkness

some satiating
some stark

what I mean
is there is ample

room in this
starless cradle

and I sleep
dead center

given no other
choice

than expansion
and dreaming

dreams of manifest
destiny

a silly word
with few exceptions

allowable only
in soft focus

a coin for luck
that sinks in still water

even I will still
permit myself this

 

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February 27

A misread,
that happiness

comes indecently—
but there’s certainly

no modesty
as this seedling

unfurls
for how many years

was it less
than a thought

a dream
of life

impossibly both
blueprint

and raw
material

in a desiccated
husk a hull

a fleck
of the plant

that it once was
and will be

again
preposterously

and joyfully
the promise

is kept
this the little

green antidote
for a heart

that is wanting–

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February 26

Wednesday the tired
wrung-out day

the lightest
of rains falling

and sometime
last night

the kid ended
up coding

went back
to the Unit

and this morning
my head aches

my dispo
brittle in so

many ways
of course

there’s no
such thing as silence

on this floor
it is a living place

it groans
with life

and at its leaving
rattles

like the IV pole
of a patient

making his rounds
all morning long

none of us
could tell you

where he is
going

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February 24

Could it mean something
that today

everyone was singing?
the kid the chef the drunk

man on the corner
hands raised waiting

to be raptured for an hour
The chef had the words

but not the tune
arriving at work

just as I was leaving
the drunk had the voice

but distance muffled
his meaning

the kid went
I need you

I need you
more than anyone

darling before rote
memory gave out

and red-faced
he caught me listening

but if anything
these days I am

the longest hallway
the openest window

the painfullest silence
so build me up

build me up
Buttercup

don’t break
my heart

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February 23

In the holly, a steller’s jay,
angles hiding angles–

black-beaked, black
-crested, less bird

than polygon,
the very shape

of caution–
its sleek

blue bravura
hidden in the shadows

of one hundred
glossy leaves,

I saw momentarily
the bird itself,

not the brash emblem
it presents and loudly

projects from blatant
chimney perches–

It was unguarded
I saw a touch of matte

on a bird that is
all glint

and grit and out
and open,

always, except
having found this

hardwood bower,
each leaf scalloping

into toothsome spines,
and deeming it tough

and tall and deep
enough,

it softened,

until I opened
the window

while washing up
and met its very eye

and watched the flinch
the stutter

-step the flight,
fragile,

for all its sure
acrobatics–

sure distractions,
as a feathered arc

is not the bird
that makes it–

seeing this jay,
I now see

the distinction

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