The cut edge of a cloud
stands out
against its backdrop
of atomized blue.
Until the bell rolls
on its greased axle,
the morning’s music
is not mechanical.
Even with the windows down,
car rides try us
when they’re not to home.
All along the bridge,
we hold our breath
but the middle and the end hurt
so we miss the open sea stretch,
every passenger’s due.
Born along on undercurrents,
flush with jellies, errant nets,
and plastic bits—we merge
in an earth-scale eddy,
gradually, oceanly.
Deep saltwater swimming,
we express sweatiness
with difficulty, distracted
by bioluminescence
and the rare
burning in our chests—where air
once went, we remember. Long since,
we let the tides take us.
Step out from the shade
and the day’s an empty street,
an entire town asleep
in deference
to the white-walled heat.
We’ll wait, with the cork oak
for company, its toothed leaves
no longer green, but fragrant
as the winding road
up to the winery.
Slack as cats drowsing,
unconscious as the sea,
we’ll soften into the base
of this tree,
our tree, so long
as we delay.
We tamp the lawn
in soft-sole moccasins.
Bee bones
crush quietly.
Too many thirsty bees
sweep our lawn
for sips—low-flyer, insect fire
putter-outer, you wet powder
strung together, you small sting
in hand.
Cloud cover insulates our early hours
from the clear blue of afternoon.
A muffled light mothers us
down avenues, just a hint
of the outdoors
on our forearms.
Emptier skies will swim
in our unadjusted eyes
when the sun has nothing left
to burn through. For now, we’ll shelter
under water vapor eaves, at ease
with shapeless shapes, ambiguity.
The earths we lure them with
fit inside
their delicate mouths,
just sized
to sift sand.
We interrupt
great nebulas
they spit
with our universal nets,
no yield yet
but gravity
and celestial dust.
We cooled while imitating
waves in paintings,
gracefully lined
with the strain
of nearly breaking.
Quiet in our stylized
repetition, we continue
in the same direction,
interrupted only
by young ōhi‘a trees,
at home on our crests
and in our low troughs,
talking together
over the ocean breeze.
Though invisible,
it exhibits
fluid, unctuous shadows
around my shadow.
The fumes, even in my hair,
hoop and halo
then expire
in their own mirage. The rush
of a passing bus
sweeps morning up
in devils and I’m loosed
on the heatstruck
crosswalk. Swiftly,
in the molten flow
of asphalt and medians
and autoelephants,
I no longer sense
the aura you lent.
A recent cup,
cheek-like
in hue and shape,
wonders whether
feeling full
is really better.
Under a red sweater
on the counter
two keys
listen: the cat’s wheeze
a sign nothing’s
pressing. Outside,
leaves wrangle
wild breezes and noon
eases into after.
In the new grass
a cat left his nap,
a sleep shape
where the stems
lie flat.
A naturalist, I collect
naps, but so does the rain
the clouds are threatening
and I don’t mind
giving in
to Spring.
