from Poem of Thanks

The Reversed Star

oracular optimism

many unions
will go on strike tomorrow
including the union
for the blue heart
of the sky
and its arteries of birds
including the union
for the oars
that are let down
by the letter p
the easy thing
is to untouch the world
how many traps I’ve built
for my body to be alone
with its thoughts
and even more elaborate ones
for it to be alone without them
hey blueberry eyes my daughter says
to herself in the fridge photo
life dawns in the poem
until some nearby flowers
do the same
I am still around
might be the first time
I’ve admitted as much
it feels so so so good

we must be winning

no one has died
will ever die
in fact I’m reviving
all of my dead
all of everyone’s
into a world
of meaning
thought I’d share
the good news

thank you pixar

what is going on in this movie
little fires walking around
confused but in awe
like they’re out of my poems
clouds walk through you until
my daughter asks
what baby is crying?
and the answer is an air baby
an air baby what wonders
BOTH SPEAKING FIRISH
say the subtitles welcome
to your new life

continuance

one time we’d run out
of rubber bands
I wanted to move
into my name
to grow all our time
on its spindle
under my ribs
little good it would do me
instead my handwriting
drops its oars to gravity
never fear I say
we’ll find the sea
that has always been
under our lives how could we not
with a white demicrown
of stars and wind
on our side

another upside down tarot star

forgetting the soul’s purpose as if
that’s a bad thing as if my pouring
out of water back into the sky
is not the most divine theft
a text thread
of preschool parents
just warned us about the squirrels
in a nearby park
a hex against the pauses in poetry
and in the writing of poetry
be there no more pauses henceforth

preparation

we bought so many
rubber bands
a lifetime supply
we could constrain anything
anything

thank you for alerting us

is the text that literally
just overlapped
this poem re: the park squirrels
and then receded back to its
floating circle
p as in pours
p as in play
my toddler hiding
behind my back
just now from something
in the fire movie
once said the sun is walking
the moon like a doggy

time

or the love of lack
I am deeply afraid
of my own death of course
but also others’
hiii intones my baby
or something approaching
speech rushing up
to hug my knees
what I am exiled from
is self-imposed
the images
are getting older too
lets say the walls
are overripe you can
feel anything
through them

forgetting again is the point

I waver in and out
of my belief in magic
you can’t always tell
and then you can always tell
in my writing
example: my daughter
is also writing in this notebook
with a wooden dowel
and you can tell
example: the most profound thing
she’s said is what she hasn’t

now choose

I have
I have arrived at
a new way
of love