trip tick

Reading A Road Map At Night

Road maps fill the glove box

Leaving little room for gloves

Eddies of watery map light pool

Shadows glove my legs

In the well below the dash

A luminous hand descends

The black rake of windshield

Finger skates a back fold pond

Ghosts a trace dissolving

Into glove black night.

anniversary

The Best Part of This Ride

is not the yellow lights

veering like starlings or

the smear of midway neon

neither is it the sweet

billow of deep fried

elephant ears or the lewd

bend of the corn dog

in the hand of the operator

centrifugal force

pinning us in a blue skylark

pulling you tight to me

your upturned cheek

is the best part

waving at strangers

stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel

every time we come around.

birder

Birds of Prey

All the information I need

today just flew by the upstairs window

where I sit gazing north through

mullions not really mullions

a quintet of brachial trees

bare against Utrecht blue sky

Arvy’s sycamore buttered

with morning sun

sparrows ducking

in and out of the attic

next door under the baleful

eye of the dog

lazing on the rug beside me

under the west facing window

oblivious to a mating

pair of hawks at ten o’clock

already hard at it

while I while morning away

maybe a little bit guilty

about my lack of talons

the hapless chipmunk caught

out in the open

a nasty bit of business

worth avoiding

for someone so ill suited

to the work of birds of prey.