I had an accident but lived in elegance
on methamphetamines and small stacks
of Black Beauty paperbacks

I wonder if Agnes meant that innocent love is the kind of love that is within us.

I’ve only seen a dead bird up close once. It wasn’t red but blue. I named it Happiness before I buried it.

Love brought these readers into the world
The cuplike structures
of their eyes were formed

Give us this day. Exhale the little thank you words, they’re quick, slip out our pores, clean hair. A shower. Soap and aspirin. Thank you. Whoever “you” might be.

Wouldn’t you say that the locksmiths come back from fishing for whales
their hands full
and their looks ecstatic

It’s Thursday and you are alive,
you are at a sidewalk café
anywhere in the world

He’s not what you expected
As you might have expected.

We make pilgrimages, we pay tribute,
as its backward-glancing heroine
is a painter’s tribute to a poet’s stanzas.

all day I’ve watched two white moths
trail and braid each other in flight