Comforted in the Deep Duress of Time
Ruin of weather unboxed in a truck of wings
and the small pebbled letters under scattering feet.
I sound different near a distant bridge.
The skyline pretends to be a crane
it could pick us up and pretend
to be a kind tongue, an emptied tongue.
An egret with a bent neck sleeping near a low metal sign
with old bullet holes makes a catastrophe of shore.
The words “Sea Lion” might be a monster or a caress or both.
The ramshackle jetty of an urban port in colloquy can’t help.
Slivers of rag and cellophane move across waning sand
and the lights going out across the channel.
The Nest of a Letter I Lay In
The many children of nowhere poems.
Absent certain words she cries.
The scrap of tire gives her gaze purpose.
Curbside estuary in rancid rattle.
She doesn't say the name of the bird,
she doesn’t say.
To pantomime the reek of collapse.
The rare appearance of plover here.
An opaque aria between inlets.
Photos of a photo.
When she forgot herself as matter.
Sacrifice of wind in her teeth.
That was how it started,
tidal city.
Trying to describe.
The sticky seduction of failure.
Pieces of splendorous trash.
The many stairs to tender beaks.