I’ll quit smoking
as soon as I
get lung cancer.

I didn’t mean to quit drinking, 
it just sort of happened. 
I’d always assumed 

You haven’t texted
since Saturday,
when I read Keith Waldrop’s

and in the also silence
of justice as after      a rain a storm a hurricane

I notice its highest buds always leaf first
the serf twigs twisted and naked

The planets whirled across the blackboard all morning, 
Saturn with its twelve rings, Jupiter with its belts,
red Mars, green Venus, the familiar blue Earth
where we sat in that eighth-grade class learning light

Another fall dusk and I was out
  with my son to pick up
the fallen walnuts, holding them to

My weakness is for color words.
It doesn't begin to annoy until such time
As the parrots and Africas are

Io a scatter of wool and its own litter
the skull stares out at the road below: socket rings 

Washing glasses in the sink
and the first thing she knew was this