PREQUEL

Before we
are born, our minds
must create themselves

by spinning and turning
like electrons
around a nucleus—

until, shorn
of all those
repetitive stresses

which conferred
upon them properties
like negativity and mass,

they may just 

sail off

into certainty’s darkness—

or else (if
we’re lucky), decay
in their orbits

and plummet toward 

our bodies’ brave new 

wilderness of guesses.

USER ERROR

How often 

life’s significance

feels like milk 

spilled 

from a faulty cup

for which there never
are enough

extra-absorbent
words to soak up.

But first:

why not instead figure 

meaning as container

and minutia’s 

profusion as its 

volumetric contents?

And second: it’s likely
your mistake, no matter 

which one you 

choose to construe 

as being lost,

if you confuse 

its carrier vessel’s user-

friendliness—or lack 

thereof—

with purpose. 

DEATH OF THE LYRIC

Two backlit grackles
perched on a windowsill

are accosted 
by a third before

exploding into early night.

For something so
uncrackable, the code

is awfully 

simple, right?

On a cosmological scale,

everything shines bright
for a minute—

then it doesn’t. So, 

what use

are these little

candle wicks and 

flimsy matchsticks?

How involute a tale
can an epigraph tell

when transmuted to 

an epitaph somewhere 

in the middle?

EQUINOXIOUS

When the summer comes,
we greet its terms

as pure of intention 

and eminently

logical—it’s

obvious to us
we deserve its gentle

embraces, soft
breezes, and fresh
boons of fruit. But

notice, when it up
and leaves, as it must,

how its sudden
departure is

anything but.

This adieu 

sounds absurd;

its premise, rude

as a crack to the face

from the palm

of a stranger; 

its syntax

and grammar,

impossible to parse—

so alien, yet 

personal—and worst 

of all, unreasonable

as a wilderness,
or a virus, 

or this

subtle tinge

of nausea 

which has just 

appeared in the 

pits of us.

OF CONSEQUENCE

I have heard it said 

that thunderstorms

are angels crying 

up in heaven.

Two tears for Auschwitz
and Hiroshima, perhaps; 

and one for Pilot’s yielding

and the washing of his hands.

But I can’t help but wonder
which spear of silver water—
which single drop of trillions
did I buy and manufacture

with my callousness, dis-

comfiture, or 

self-righteous reach 

for the shield of solutions?

How much absolution can 

one tiny bit of certainty cost? 

And what desperately thirsty 

but innocent plot

might that tortured drop
of water nurture—when 

and wherever it chances 

to land?

CHRONOS AND KAIROS

When it moves too fast,

even mastery 
will break stuff.

There’s a time to make 

appointments—and a time 

to test your patience. 

For instance: this tercet 

has been intentionally 

left blank.

And the clock in your 

pocket—or the one

in your chest

may palpitate
but doesn’t have
a thing to say about it.

ITE MISSA EST

A life isn’t finished
at the moment 

when it ends,

but when 

nothing more
can be added to it,

and nothing less
subtracted—
in other words, when

certainty is sentiment,

and clairvoyance

is distant past.

That’s a nice way 

of saying
that acquiescence

is preferable to out-
and-out dismissal.
From then on, perhaps

all beings go in peace

to love and serve
an afterthought:

a man and a woman

and a blackbird, 

for instance, are 

dust—or

are finishing 

one another’s sentences 

in heaven 

while the studio 

audience laughs.