they fall together, rain and night
both warm as mother’s kisses on crown
protective, solid, grounded and safe
people give themelves over to rain
those that fear have already scurried
their hard shells of umbrellas clamped
swifter and harder than night, rain
both amplified by the contrast
of headlights. both change the pace
of footsteps to night slow for those
who remain out here, themselves given over
to the greater later, touching weather

anatomy of the new season
stepping from steam of bus to street
my parotid lymph nodes are exposed,

Uvula wracked, tract explodes
with propelled load of cold-shocked air.

using the diaphragm as a trampoline
genuflected seeds of viral wheeze

are aireborne, as summer bubbles
atomized invisilbized, over rooftops.

Tug, cover, my occidipal lymph nodes
toque pulled low, untuck the scarf from my

scalenus medius and wrap my nose &
external acoustic meatus before it’s froze!

hall mirrors face themselves
full in the glass, expressionless
as whisky, with not a voice
to hoarse around ideas with, flashes
of flurried colors passed uncaptured
for future records to verify this

the frame rocks with no hand
to steady the swing. nailed
pendulums can’t fall and break
cyptic small hand of lead pencil
rubs the paint of the wall
in illegible proof of movement

a dry rattle among raspberry canes rainsticks
against grasses, air, a puff-laugh escaping thoughts,
hairroots of hundred year elms motion quelled

blink at the bleak wet-denim-black
trunks shuddering stripped of leaves.
spring blossoms are ludicrous naive hope

yet poplar buds already have nubs swollen
reddening nervous system molecularly jittering,
tense, release, beneath snow crust, beneath

the frozen humus the shapes of roots
(that are spread ready) are an echo,
an aboveground silhouette of summer

the dormancy is thinner than voice,
hard edge levers choice to pace
their whetted lines to scraps of heat

to the pendulum swings of moon.
a viscous stickiness thins to liquid primed
– mid-winter strains to stay within its own confines

scraped hickey of dirt, thin flake of frozen not
inert, bold voles stroll the airspace snatching
beetles flipping to back of tongue, air humid enough

to be wrung. Impossible is an imp of bull bones
a trickster crow that knows when all is lost
there is no lost place things go. all is here.

feel the memory of the climb, dust-colored bellyhair
black squirrels toenails leave marks on trunk’s bark
comic affrontery charms bloodthirst to swooning coos

Summer never left. It was only playing peek-a-boo
A scare, a one-sided fun. It is down under, wide-eyed
tense to be uncovered, beside the boiler, limp asleep.

Numbers Just don’t stick
in my head. Numbers
trip in my head, tumble,
collide, a tangled tango
of 11 and crossed 7s.
They jive but not well
switching positions, shifting
to cough-sobre, the suddenly
self-conscious lines
try to rebutton each other,
blink up with near-confident smiles
in a dishevelled, hastily reassembled,
to presentable state,
but obviously
to everyone else, wrong