Thermalization in an Extensive, Mountainous Landscape

Stronger winds, bigger debris
Outside the window. The storm
Is cotton-mouthed, spittle-flecked

At the corners of the clouds,
And swallowing hard, as if
Trying to gulp at the creek

Choked on tumbleweeds below.
Description, kittens. This storm
Is gasping for description.

Another tumbleweed, huge
Enough for a house to wear
Like a wig, bounces off rocks

And disintegrates. Straw fall.
All emptiness wants to sprawl.

Crossing Evening

The skater’s never fast enough.
Even when the outline is clear,
The edge of the shadow almost
Already a sketch of itself,

Even when the moment lumbers
Like an attraction in a zoo,
Going nowhere, only shifting
Its stance as it chews through the hay,

The skater can’t be fast enough.
The infinitesimal edge
The blade occupies has shifted,
Slightly, yet again, so begin

Another sketch of the border.
The futility isn’t lost
On the skater, who is counting
On the impossibility

Of illustration, no matter
How speedy the illustrator,
To sketch the more important point.
Changes are real. Divisions aren’t.

The Breakup Song

They haven’t sunk in.
Or it hasn’t. Both
Of them were only

The exact same thing,
After all. Just two
Of it. Uh oh. Now,

You’re going to get stuck
Again. Nothing could
Be manufactured

More rigorously
The same-as than them,
Their precise, exact

Specifications.
But they weren’t the same.
Same as never mind,

But there were the two
Of them, histories
Diverging, and then

In you, converging
Again. There were two,
There are always two,

If there is one, if
There really is one.
Still hasn’t sunk in.

Dream Simile

In the dream you were forced
To dream for someone else,
Someone dead for ages,

You were a murderer
Fleeing your home on foot,
Only horses faster,

And you came to a land
Of strangers—they to you
And you to them alike.

You sought out the palace
Of the wealthiest home
In that dream. You entered

And everyone crowded
Into the house was shocked,
But they never said why.

No one knew who you were,
Or where you’d come from or
Who your victim had been,

In the dream you were forced
To dream for someone else,
Someone dead for ages.

Archaic Paradox

They squat opposite
The cave opening,
One barely inside,
Other barely out.

They maintain their stares
At each other’s eyes,
Neither one speaking
Or looking away.

It’s a sunny day,
No storms in the air,
A little old snow
Melting in patches.

Neither notices
You watching, waiting,
Aching to see them
Introduce themselves,

Interact somehow.
For them to do that
Would mean you’re involved.
You can’t intervene.