Afterword

8 short poems

Afterword


Morning fills 

the room, first 
with light, and

then with sound. 

I write what
rises—these 

waking names. 


*


In June’s lucid dream 
rain blurs a world 
into focus. 
How honeysuckle 
      tongues 
the gap 
in a green slash
dripping crystal.


*


Irises, their
indescribable
       violet,
in bloom beside
a funeral home’s
bedraggled
       hedges.


*


Gravity 

or grief, how
the words want 

to fall clear 

through the page—
trace of no 

trace remains. 


*


Blue heron

in a green 
pool of shade

by the pond

behind an
abandoned 

post office.


*


Puncture-wound sun 
pulses through 
low-slung, 
flint-gray 
haze     
        cast down
from wildfires
in forests
                 too far 
            to name. 


*


Mid-summer

when deep green 
falls in from

every

edge. The weight
of these sloped 

fields—enfleshed.


*

Lone, multi-headed
dandelion, like a lamp 
lancing through the grass.