I lived in an orchard
in the sun-green society
of leaves. The shade
lures me under trees still
for long stretches
when the sky
withholds rain
and the season
threatens fire
and the birds
mistake my open back door
for open air.

Meet you
on the avenue
of one hundred fountains—
may the fountains
mist our hair.
In the place
where moss
softens ruins,
new greens unfasten
amidst ferns,
spout delicate
on the rims of pools
and the water
from the mouths
of fountains falls,
movement a sound.

Deep green Victorian
hot house plants
crowd the glass—
left these long years
to press
wet against
this derelict storefront,
almost black
at sunset,
a suffocation of leaves.

Out from the dark
a light metallic
tins the town
while half-asleep
and from the clouds
children catch
sky fish—
great spotted gar
unfazed in the air.

From this redwood-shake cabin
set down
on a forest slope
a blue puff
of woodsmoke
sent up
through redwood trunks
and sharp rays
of autumn sun—
from the little stack,
this watchfire
in the rough.

Give me a windbreak—
I can’t stand
the landscape—
I wake in the night
from the wind.
Anything, even
forlorn eucalyptus
to send down showers
of thin, fish-shaped leaves.
The scent
I realize I miss
when I return
to this wide-open,
sun-broken place
we lived.

Get far away
if only you bring
your bad mood
and bad days.
We none of us
nobody want you.

Tables stacked three high—
from the ruin
of our rooms
each table
a place to forget
cooling tea,
half-eaten
See’s candies—
the heating vents
hot and strong
all winter
lift the drawings
taped to the wall—
lift and settle,
lift again—
the portrait of you,
of me,
two long lines
scratched out
by our baby son.

A classical fortress
in stone
she owns
a host
of romantic traits—
her nose
in profile aquiline,
an old and careful ship
but upside down—
she dashes orders off
without fuss,
“finds fault
without heart.”