Too lotsthese lights. Batscan’t do their gnat trickbit. Too coursethese foods, too bruisedthe fruit, blacked the viewToo fierce these fuedsToo true: all sinned,too sinned, all,

That time keeps onslippingslippingslippinginto the futureisn’t true,strictly speaking. It slips past, if anything,like a train.It also slipsinto the past as ifthe past were a bogcapable

And what did they write with their iron styli,what complaints carve into his scholar skinby order of the Emperor; by assignmentand timely, stab with their

When, at 1:00 am, our neighbor risesfor his nightly ritual, plinks a bit, then— perhaps inspired—passionately pounds out“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” my husband

“…the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” — Isaiah 11:7“Is this what it’s like…a little blood here, a chomp there … must everything whole

a rattler come sliding through the grassslow as digestion. I stamped the dirt—but you know effort in a dream is like kicking cotton— it kept

This world is a garden fearfully madean unruly orchard once well formedthough now decayed I am a gardenerwho mourns well-meaning overwhelmed misguided having let children

The soul of my cat is in the riseand fall of her breathing,undulations like wind overa prairie, softest plumes tremblingon the spine of a knife.

A friend loves at all times … a sibling is born for adversity — Proverbs 17:17 friendship is a reciprocal relationshipcharacterized by intimacymade faithful because