BRIEF

Having plenty of toilet
paper in reserve makes
one feel loved and
oddly inappropriate

at the same time.
If nothing brings about
an earlier collapse than
expected, everything

uneventful should stay
outside the circle.
The brief pause we
call life has been

cleverly positioned between
being and becoming.

PIRATES

Criminals hide by
being us, then leave
when the coast is clear.
A gentle dream on

mental wings lights
softly on your breast,
your wish a candle I
haven't blown out but will.

Land begins where
the water ends, while
the pirates, from whom
my thoughts are fleeing,

slip quietly away on a
memory slick with pretending.

FENCES

Seems the harder
I try the whiter
my hair becomes.
I keep trying anyway

for fear of a different
darkening, an unused-to
stumbling into stillness.
My neighbor, whose name

turns dark when I whisper,
rebuilds a fence between
us I'd torn down. I'm
not sure why we do

the things we do or
don't before we sleep.

THE PLUMS
for Elaine Equi

The still life he ate
and replaced with an
apology (thanks, Elaine)
tasted even better

than it looked. And,
of course, it sounds
great when we paint
it with our ears

(inner or outer,
depending on whether
we read the poem aloud).
Sight, taste, sound, smell.

We hold those plums
in our hands.

NAIL

The brain, knowing
it can never come
down here, not even
through the gap uncertainty

leaves in things, reaches
out for something out
of reach. A hole
in the middle of this

closes faster than an eye that
doesn't like what it
sees. The body drags
an old hammer from

its tool chest and drives
a longer nail into itself.

THE ASSUMPTION

Trees that came
and placed themselves
in her were not
responsible for what

happened after that.
She was upset,
yes, and more than
a little surprised.

But no one, not
even the trees, could
have anticipated that
heaven would open

up without warning and
wish her through its gates.

LEFTOVER

In death's pure dark
the end at least is
clear. Everything near
is far away, of course,

as the faint scent
of joy lingers in
the nostrils like a
saint. I sense what's

next the way a calendar
knows what's coming.
The best of us forgets
herself, dissolving

into the rest of us like
a leftover question.