the gift of openness
is an unsmoothed stone
tomorrow will wear
away grains of
moments

will you
call? fateful cold
water rushes past, and i 
must yield rough notions
to finality.

smoldering wick, a
scent of heat.
your hair blows
like it in the wind,
as you walk
away

life-world fabric
drapes over my head
i can taste, yet
and eyes blink and
feel linen, and this is
trying to see
yes, the world is just
yes as close as my
own breath

to tear at the fabric
is to pierce morning sheets
with fingernails
and maybe wakeup in
a tent in the wilderness.

a sheet covered david
as they installed electric
lights at the accademia-
a momentary darkness for
humming lights.

eyelids open/closed
leave the glossy mags
to alleyway rotting,
to see
truth unclothed
like a veil never touched
my face or
hers
like she's celibate
and sober, marble-like
a girl cold-faced to
catcalls; beautiful
she is just
beautiful as close as her
own breath

endlessness creases to
a single moment in a
pleated dress swaying
against your knees

i want to be a
nomad, nylon-clad
tents around my sleep
a folding sojourn

lest we unfold dreaming
fully, remember the wind 
will fill up fabric, like a
stray plastic bag, a ghost

empty mailbox on
the overgrown
walk,
the maple tree's
fingers are
dying and
shed their leaves
a desk by
the window
waits for a
manifold of
letters
and carries hardbacks
of dead philosophers
which the world
shed while waiting
for handwritten
meaning

gift of glitter
to eyes
from thriftstore jewlery
a teasing smile
in a glass box

the cacti bloom
through one-acre
prairies:
this one's just a
floret. i sit and wait
for sunset.

you're all that
glitters, a little
flower. i walk home
on the ridge-line
at moonrise

sullen * grows in
doubt soil,
dies to replace
it, a flowerlike
paper clip
full of tabloid
photos.
makeup and
erasure
strive,
and despair to
drink an
album leak,
to make scarlet
numerals
top exec suit-
black;

attached

catches eye
like mosquito
wing

yes, the no
will
leaven me.