Poetry

The upright scrawl of leaf cleaving last to the fig tree I mistake each daybreak for the bird-messenger, the one which I am sure will come flare the mouth of morning.

Orbits have pulled us to this moment. Blessed are you who call me out of darkness to feed me low-hanging light, waxed amber and plump.

They are not native, the Queen Anne's Lace, chicory, and birdsfoot trefoil that add so much to the country drive, as they wave back and from from the shoulder of the road.

This rain, which falls so lovingly not too hard, not too soft, on leaves and grass and on itself in puddles, should fall on my beloved sister, whose dry forests are in flame.

We say "He" without a name to speak of you, hear our own sounds echoed back from far away in the monitor's shush and fuzz.

There is a resolute black seatbelt. The thin aluminum rail clicks to a close.

3:00 am Christmas, and your newly divorced neighbor's trying to screw together the last wall of a doll house for the four-year-old she's finally coaxed into sleep.

Ready to swallow the fallen, the sea swells. "The waters want me," Jonah cries, running, running, always running away.

I promise not to miss this gift—helleborus—poisonous kin of buttercups that bloom all year.