To X

Shine on, die-cut moon,
platinum in your deep blues,
show the way home to-

night. I open your
darkness. Incorruptible,
you follow me in.

I cannot call you
Soul. You’re more intimate to
me than I am. Shine

on our bodies in
ecstasy. In the dark com-
municate our love.

Easter a Tall Order

It’s Holy Week. Signs
everywhere in sparkling
air. You are welcome

to pray as the kids
hunt Easter eggs. The meaning
is the interplay.

I nod to the tall
Rector on my way up Broad.
It’s a beautiful day.

Pansies

As I leave a glance
back at her window boxes
brimming with pansies.

They writhe in the night
wind. She planted them yester-
day as Spring arrived.

What puts the shine on
things? Does she linger inside
the door? Orpheus,

do what you will it
is not your praise that matters.
Her radiant doubt.

Breakfast Poem

In the middle of
breakfast the cat wants to be
fed. Not a problem.

What I can’t do is
satisfy the self that wants
a poem for break-

fast. Doing won’t do.
I feed the cat, sip coffee,
and see what happens.

ABC

The building blocks on
the floor of the nursery
shine, if memory

serves. Big fat letters—
L, K, O, S, M, Z, K—
tipped this way and that.

Nobody’s around.
Radiant repose, about
to say something new.

Flux

For a second you
leaned on my shoulder, it calmed
us both, or seemed to.

I’m a bookish man,
skeptical, timid, so love’s
equilibrium

is, if it happens,
worth noting. Otherwise flux
makes life not worth it.

Archilochus in the Village

I hear, ‘Each of you
have a story to tell.’ Or:
‘Each story is one

story.’ Beautiful.
I eavesdrop in the village,
my book open to

Archilochus: ‘…and
her hair shadowed her shoulders
and her back.’ An old

man with his school text,
that frayed green Loeb underlined
with Cupid arrows.