FOR THE Nth TIME

As if brand new 

to the fierce 

wild angles 

and delirious 

verve of their 

iridescent bodies, 

hordes of starlings 

have begun 

to swarm the branches 

of the bare tulip 

poplar trees 

every afternoon 

to flap and gossip 

in madcap anticipation 

of the new season. 

For a moment, there is 

not a scrap of silence 

or of room;

then, the spell breaks, 

and the murmuration 

dissipates

as the world at large 

exhales, relaxes, 

and moves on, 

forgetting 

for the nth time, as it 

mercifully must, 

that there's still so many 

small gods at large 

on the planet—

and yet 

so little heaven. 

CONFESSION

To the tire-

marked rat corpse, 

lying half-squashed 

in the pockmarked 

asphalt of the alley's 

left wheel rut: 

yes, of course 

I hope the rain comes 

to flush you well away—

but still I can't 

wish that you didn't 

exist. 

After all, 

to whom else but you 

is it safe to confess 

all my worst 

bents and most 

hideous secrets?

The ways I've been 

callous or raised 

vindictive fists—

or worse, how I've been 

in no rush 

to make change? 

I am not proud 

of this, but what 

can I say?

The slow road to hell 

is long, but it's paved. 

And at least 

until now, I've had 

the sense to get out 

of faster traffic's way. 

CHRISTENING

We label the chutes 

and bulbs now emerging 

as aconite,

snow drop,

crocus,

or primrose—

as if it profited us 

to designate discretely 

the preludes 

to this end of repose 

as these blind and half-starved 

harbingers of spring.

But how much more

would be gained, I wonder, 

if we just let that hunger rage 

in our wonder 

and called these new feelings 

by their actual names? 

SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES

"Get with the program,"

we like to say—

as if joining the story 

already in progress—

however nebulous, 

humdrum, or rotten—

would align us 

with its future twists 

and keep us safe 

from being forgotten. 

*

There's a right way 

and a wrong way 

to get with the winning team. 

You can urge on 

your own undoing 

like a Sophocles chorus, 

or fly underneath 

the swarming angels 

of your doom, 

then sink 

to the bottom, try to 

quorum-sense the storm.

*

In the best case, 

death is a lot 

like sleep: 

less a shorting out 

of focus 

than a broadening 

of attention—

a late-

in-the-third-act 

realization 

and acceptance of that

which has 

already happened. 

WHEREAS

Vis-à-vis

our tendency to cling: 

define "nostalgia" 

as that pillow of your past 

without the suffocating weight 

of all of its minutiae. 

* 

If it hurts you, 

then it's matter; 

if not, it's 

information—

whereas:

everything in between 

is just empty space, 

and everything outside it 

is just idle 

speculation. 

*

Re: the mass 

hysteria of crowds, 

be careful

what you say 

you don't believe in, 

for hope is not one—

but many little gods, 

still so new at this 

they don't want to be 

found out. 

FRAMING DEVICES

At one certain point, 

everyone living 

has precisely 

the same amount of past 

as future. 

For this moment only, 

they no longer need to walk, 

to count, to listen;

there is nowhere to go—

they are home. 

*

Quick question—

how many descriptors 

does it take 

to denote 

an individual? 

How many individual birds 

make a pair?

and how many pairs make 

a difference? 

*

Behind each eyelid, 

there's a small, tidy room 

being held 

in reserve 

for "you." 

*

The beginning of love 

is sympathy for another, 

but the end of love 

is pity. 

How can this be?

The holy trinity was made 

when two lovers 

walked together on the shore 

and were followed 

by the gaze 

of a third-

person narrator. 

*

The structure of sentences 

like those above 

has conditioned each of us 

to value most that 

which we expect 

to see next. 

In just the same way, 

reverberation teaches 

that every word 

which comes to us 

has already been said 

at least once. 

DIAGNOSTIC

The results are in—

inside me, there's a knotted fist 

of string 

where the beginnings 

and endings 

of things ought to be—

long twisted tangles 

of some equally inaccessible 

near and far, 

some tension 

that's connected to, but doesn't 

end with me 

and the start of which has 

always been 

somewhere else entirely. 

*

I used to be more 

exact than this, 

but that was before I knew

letters and numbers.

Now, every frightened thought 

is less a mandate 

than a blundered attempt 

at a revolution—

which is 

to say: half senseless 

directionless, 

nonproductive motion

and half little battle 

for the truth 

of some previous-

ly governable situation.