Time & Brevity

November Becomes the Sky With Suppers for the Dead

I am standing outside
in Minnesota
ghost wind recalling
names in winter mist

The road smells
of dogs two days dead

White photographers talk in
the house of mainstream
media

I can’ t articulate
the agony of Eagle Singer’ s
children to them.

Haiku Journey

i. Spring

the tips of each pine
the spikes of telephone poles
hold gathering crows

may’ s errant mustard
spreads wild across paved road
look both ways

roadside treble cleft
feeding gopher, paws to mouth
cheeks puffed with music

yesterday’ s spring wind
ruffling the grey tips of fur
rabbit dandelion

ii. Summer

turkey vulture feeds
mechanical as a red oil rig
head rocks down up down

Horses in Snow

They are a gift I have wanted again.
Wanted: One moment in mountains
when winter got so cold
the oil froze before it could burn.
I chopped ferns of hoarfrost from all the windows
and peered up at pines, a wedding cake
by a baker gone mad. Swirls by the thousand
shimmered above me until a cloud
lumbered over a ridge,
bringing the heavier white of more flurries.

Long Enough

You would have thought it foolish to speak to the dead,

but I have lived two decades longer now than you

and all this time I have carried you in my head

so I think I have the right to question what you said,

dear teacher. My religious upbringing’s residue,

you would have thought it foolish. To speak to the dead,

however, is sometimes necessary, especially haunted

by all the things I know you hoped I’d do

with all this time that I have carried you in my head.

In a dream last night I followed where you led

Oration: Half-moon in vermont

A horse is shivering flies off its ribs, grazing
Through the stench of a sodden leachfield.

On the broken stairs of a trailer
A laughing fat girl in a T-shirt is pumping
Milk from her swollen breasts, cats
Lapping at the trails. There's a sheen of rhubarb
On her dead fingernail. It's a humid morning.

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