What Isn’t Turns Your Head More Sharply Than What Is

Pole-vaulting shadows
Catch the corner
Of your saccading

Panorama—wait!
Are those real shadows?
Nothing’s throwing them.

Well surely this is
Just one of the signs
Of your end’s approach.

Failure of vision,
Shadows, illusions
As the brain breaks down—

So long as you know,
Then they aren't scary.
Fine apparitions

Are entertaining
In their startling way.
Wilder and wilder,

Of course, but only
As emissaries.
Nothing’s throwing them.

Invasions Mature in Ruins

Finches, wrens, and flycatchers,
Roadrunners and quail—all pass
Your back doors’ double-paned glass,

So closely and so often
There’s no need for bird watching,
Not with those birds watching you.

And then there’s the mule deer who crop
The landlord’s perfunctory plants,
Remote landlord collecting rent

On these matchstick townhomes waiting
The next significant rockslide,
The next honest-to-god earthquake,

These townhouses anything but
Remote to the lean coyotes,
The fox that trots over the trail,

The butterflies, tarantulas,
Lizards snuggled into the rocks,
The low canyon winds that lean in

Hard against the awkward corners,
The atmosphere scratching itself
Against the intrusive structures

Of these buildings that don’t belong,
In which you love not belonging
Since intruding digs you in close

To the world that will overwhelm
You eventually, adopting
You, once ruined one of its own.