reypulque

I take a swallow from the steel cup, forgetting briefly that the coffee has cooled, the cup beset by nervy flies and the ruthless breeze of autumn waking up. I take the rest as time spent if not time served, a punishment befitting the life. Always aggrieved and put upon, the thinking pours it on thick. The cherished voice becomes a relentless quiet, no other...
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Time is told from either side

the clock grinding on the wall

the time until and the time since

turning over together

in the compost of your thinking,

from the dazzle mechanic to

the bride of the sky, from dead pet to

dead pet, with the dead elders to

work the earth of days and dreams.

The word itself arrives a great bird,

high and...
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The small things come hardest—

the fragment of geode,

the obsidian shard

muddled in the dust,

the stacked books and

favored feathers, postcards

and lovely works, art

crafted in proof, oh proof

that once I was loved

or at least time was served,

this ravaged sediment of

labor and skill, letters left

to their tenses, gifts strewn

across my life. Nothing

so treasured, nothing so...
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It isn’t only the labor of the honeybee or

the sacrifice of the sugarcane,

this sweetness

I seek, it is my work

through this world and the words

I founder in, the heft of these wishes,

the hunger of a love-starved heart

bidden to the hopeless and

the gone, clinging to the wheel

as it turns and turns though the sweet

comes as strong black...
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It isn’t mine to sing though

the singing isn’t stealing,

the song picks its own

team, not just the sparrows

chittering in the pines,

not just the dogs

raising hell at the neighbors

shuffling down the driveway like

lords of the earth, haughty about

the home. Our voices raised

like the shock of defeat,

raised like the baffled revenants

beneath some Christ-y craft or

muddled...
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The sky goes blue for a breath or two, the last lashings of sunlight stirred into the heap of smoke, heaven always holding out for someone better. The day is heat and habit, all the young folk loosed past the limits of their patience, as I hang around with the dregs and drags. The sun will set, and I will again be erased. I will...
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Again the night comes down from the eaves and trees, shadows filling up the scenery, the day done at once. The day came and went without any help from me, things ever as they are always. The sun swinging by without asking, the light comes and goes, leaves me to my notebooks and my catacombs. Around in sick circles I carry the ember, the torch...
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The moon reaches down

through the iron of

my roots, shining

soft amongst my crown of stars.

I cup my hands to drink my fill,

then I drink again,

we talk the days,

the nights we tell

our secrets and our spells.

Oh becoming One,

oh declaimed radiance

amorous upon the hunt

the heart takes wings

while the rest takes time.

I look up, eyes...
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The indulgent magic back about, the mystery running free, sink a stone behind the earth the shine that finds the moon. The book broken at the spine, the ash a second coming of the sin. The smoke and stones in equal numbers, the numbers plugging in, it is within the becoming. The story at its most, as we bathe in the ricochet of sun and...
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I walk upon my sacrifice

the body always stealing from the earth,

being spilling over the lip,

the chalice forever overflowing.

The blood turns brown

the green sock sticking to

the bled through gauze

gifted with the warning and

the wait, the heavy press,

pain singing along to

this stumbled dance,

this humbled glint of cognition,

the engine turning over in the dirt.

Ants seethe...
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I sit down at last to watch the sunset, but the sun is already long gone, covered by the clouds and smoke that thicken out sky. The sweet pang of the sacred west and my secret star unseen, my heart swells on the tall grays and deepening blues as it all goes on to black. The day burnt down to this, this motor shook stillness,...
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There isn’t much I’ll miss—

a few people, the mountains,

most dogs, all babies—

even the ones that can’t stop

crying on planes or at the movies,

the babies you should let me soothe

but you fear me, never knowing

what makes you fear me is

what makes babies cry,

your dissembling truths and

weaknesses you have mistaken

for your power. Anyway

it is too...
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