I painted still lifes-- peonies and roses, until a romance blossomed, and I stepped into that ring of marriage when I stopped

Wild creatures flash stiletto hooves through the forest, glossy wings catch indigo light as night falls. At a dinner party submerged in leaves,

To stand barefoot upon the stoop takes nerve, When winter paints the land in frigid white.

Down by the lake, fireworks disturb the night, The bursts recall the bombs in desert lands;

I hear my children laughing in the garden, gazing at the moon, though years have faded away and only I remain here gazing at the moon.

It was a love come undone, no more heart cards in red. She would need to explain, fold story in a neat box.

By the time I was back the fruit was ready unflappably blue through cool pepper sheets

He loses himself in the river that sends a boy down the rapids that make a man,

We were poets, painters, always, in spite

It is no secret, sidewalk-strider, that all are not aligned, like you,

We’re 18 and 20, unbound, unfettered, gilded cages in the distance a mere mirage,

i can’t stop imagining how it would feel to be a snake shed the shell of myself

As the voices merge and swim  in unison beneath the darkening blue,  as swallows dart above the top 

You made an art of freedom in restraint, O wilderness! O careful cultivation! Lover, lady, lion, patron saint.

Focusing  Setting goals  is an obsession  that pushes 

Dolls of glazed porcelain in China towns Posed proudly upon their doily shelves, yet I am dusty beneath the kitchen chair.

We get rain a lot like tears, hot, clouds like pallors, like the shade on Grandfather's face

Father believed I could not love a tree Because you had no hands for me to hold,

to Hell when I die, all my many fails and transgressions and trespasses but sin

Where unchosen silences abound people whisper silently inside. Silence whispers, inside people