- from Set Theory
Hearing Voices
When the thumb of summer presses down
and the creek dries up,
a subterranean babble rises from under bed-rocks,
lapping at the roof of a mouth.
It could pass for someone sighing, a girl laughing,
lovers whispering secrets grabbed by air.
It could be what is left of ancient voices
escaping through their secret door--
much like trapped fingerling trout
thrashing against the prison chill
of their shrinking pools, weight of the end
upon them.
.
Hibernaculum -from Formulary
If its cold enough—
non-essentials shut down
so two people can winter-
over together.
I am telling you
what we have will last.
Its not your fault my distrustful side
is dug in deep
from childhood
when my mother
had the kitchen painted yellow,
brightest shade on the color chart
and how dad kept it that way
after the divorce.
What does all this mean, anyway,
when I can’t outrun the words written
about me in the stars? Born January
first in the hands of the Finger Lakes
during the blizzard of the century
the reason I won’t go to Florida
with you. When the house we share
is snowed-in and muffle-bound,
swaddled torpid box snug like a casket,
it is enough waking up next to you
and from under the covers we wonder
where thirty years have gone.
