​1
don't
despair
dear wife

there is a
cow gentle
soft
tongued

dog on
our roof
snapping
at birds

about whom
the neighbor
called
my work

concerned
for our dog
but not
the birds

2
our basset isn't like
a toddler unaware
of his bad haircut.
he likes his bad haircut.
his middle name is wallow.
grace of a fish
but a catfish.
every three weeks or
so he writes a letter
to the editor.
there's rolling of the eyes.
his missives are always
the same: complaints
about the park district,
the state of the roads,
how loud kids
are nowadays, windfarms.
the usual outrage. when the
paper comes that day
he barks and barks.

3
I'm under the back steps
with my dog.

He spent the day there.
It's lonely like the

time I slept in a
field across from a

house. It
was cold and the

porch
light kept me half awake.

There are leaves and dirt
but mostly there's fur.

This is where we've gone to
dream and to twitch and

to bite one another's cheeks
and smooth one another's faces.

Oily nose to dusty nose. That's
how we were.

He's been drinking and drinking
and throwing up clear

so we keep the toilet lids down
and hope

for the best or the
worst. Not the in between.

He went under the culvert once.
There had

been a flood and he
was fetching sticks. He

went into a
drain and bobbed up on the

other
side like a cork.
He snatched frisbees

out of the
air like plates off a shelf.

Bury me
under the back porch
steps with my dog.

We can be
there together next to the

cool foundation of the house.

It's a place nobody looks. It's
a place everyone finds.

#weeklypoemandpic

40. medicinal

the pill that he
took showed him

how it felt to climb over
the green mountain

and swim the
brown river clothed

to cross a border of
fences and weeds.

anything to get here
where he was already.

he looked around winded
wondering about

the things he’d collected
and the wives he’d left

and was homesick for
for the village he’d been
​
trying to come home to
when he took the pill.
#weeklypoemandpic

36. History lesson
“Well Capricorn I hope you like the color black because that peacock is your color in this game.”

Capricorn’s opening move would be studied and although of course he lost
his willingness to move the piece and
his anger at being called prissy
was the first thrust in the rebellion
and subsequent freedom from the oppression of the man or the type
of man who smugly made the challenge.

That board and the black piece would be found years later a fossil the board
hard as rock instead of a scarf
as it surely was once worn around the neck tied intricately but easily removed
with one fluid movement so it could be draped down with casual yet regal ceremony and the game played upon it.

​Was it Capricorn’s scarf or his opponent’s? It was always made out to be the the oppressor’s board but really it was Capricorn’s and he unwound it incorrectly from around his neck the midddle finger mispositioned but symbolic of something new in spite of its or because of its awkwardness. And then the flood and the anger and the preservation of that moment as a relic as a play as a poem as a painting and the phrase “Capricorn called a peacock’’ as a means of denoting
anger that leads to change.
#weeklypoemandpic

35. Roost
​
In this world you should convert easily.
Adopt.
Or not convert at all.
Adapt.
Find the way of the pigeon.
Never be forced to escape
or to be a refugee.
Land where there is a place to alight.
Sing underwater bruits.
Raise your young in rafters.
Make a nest of scraps.
Eat morsels moist or dry.
Don't grow teeth. Or do.
Find the warm windowsill.
Cool on the predatorless statue.
Imitate the sound
a flapping goose makes that terrifies
the bigger jawed beakless creatures.
Be the night birds that move more
air in the dark but sparingly.
Sink talons into the screen door
and perch like a bat.
Open with the door.
Close with the door.
Be weighty as a body.
Be weightless as the
remaining fish
in the opaque sea.
Do you believe
in pigeon babies?
They creak like hinges
between the bricks
hiding where there once
was chimney and smoke.
#weeklypoemandpic

34. Contact tracer.

Isn’t that what you keep
track of
all the time
anyway
Who touched you
who you touched
Full time work
Part time work
4am work
Calling people saying
who do you know
that has this
stain on their
Face facts
I need you to face facts;
that forehead you
pressed on with
your finger
Don’t make your
point that way
Don’t push on
that woman’s head
You will get sick
like an idiot
An idiot that got sick
making a point
Answer the phone
Answer
the phone
You need to say
who you touched
It is your responsibility
now that you are ill
​
#weeklypoemandpic