See the fireflies spark glowing light
this is the drought you can’t escape
listen to the glimmer in your eyes
if there were stars out tonight
that’s how they would shine
you can’t go around Texas
it’s everywhere—in your clothes,
your hair, stuck between your teeth
a jet plane’s contrail
splits in two, a heart breaking
dissolves into cumulus clouds
that look like bees
I wish I was a horseman racing
headless heedless wild down the plains
bright sunshine glints on razor wire
an egret pumps the sky
a daytime star in blue
imagine the newspaper you read every day
I will be the article you clip & never throw away
now do you smell the slow spring coming?
the grass humid with the buzz of dragonflies
an airplane’s drone reaches the rec yard
it’ll land somewhere in a few minutes
we will still be here
imagining birds & sky & other lives
sunlight moves like a broom
through wild worldspinning grass
the grackles in the trees are machines
tuning up & ready for the day’s
music no one would recognize
a heartbeat on the edge of familiar
songs written in dead languages
& trees that grow twisted on the plains
could be the old hair metal guitar
that escaped the pawnshop wall
I stole this from some stories you used to tell
something from beyond the memories
of great grandparents & 90s hard drives
a butterfly struggles flaps mad
through the yard
warm morning daguerrotype sunlight
& notes slipped past the censors
the swoop and swirl of phony wood
painted on a tabletop
listen: we drift through high plains
memories from movies
& dry dust surf rock soundtracks
beneath an overturned mason jar
gears drop into that smooth oscillation
how we dance now we dance how we dance
I wish I was an Iceland gull
soaring over stormy seas
I’d act like I belonged there
there like tiny purple flowers
in green grass, sparks & eruptions
where killdeer poke along
a summer road
twisting down the mountains
ran a river road
we knew it so well
knew it wouldn’t end
but we’re clocks
& we cannot tell the time
I want to open
every night
knock on candlelight
talk to something frightening
secret, somehow
a way to see
///
Erasure poem from Number the Stars (p22) by Lois Lowry. We took pages from an old copy that was falling apart and bound for the recycle bin and distributed them to our classes to make erasure poems. This was mine.
Crystalline beaches on some Philippine island,
somewhere I’ve never been:
an ad—digital sharp—on my screen.
I remember faded Kodak color,
old photos from the tropics,
a distant childhood,
faded blue mountains and a blurry sea.
Grainy life seen in a kid’s Instamatic 110
makes me wonder
about the ad, the way Luzon might
look to modern or at least grown-up
eyes. I can almost hear the roaring
vintage fighter jets. Do tourists
who answered the ad look up at sky
printed in the ‘70s?
At some point walking down the same trail that’s so familiar but still capable of surprise, I realize I can count life in decades now, neatly dividing events into personal eras. The path descends to a tree where I turn for a loop along the creek that tomorrow will find the river.
a certain slant of flight
in the bleak December sky—
crows heading home
///
knotted bird nests dot
barefingered trees
twisted fists
shake at a sky
too warm for January
do you see the contrail gash
how it tears the sky?
apply direct pressure
at night we’re statues, arms
upraised
night bleeds in from the east
count the tourniquet stars
so slow we dream
like poisoned trees
in the morning I take
the same little walk I always do