setting me down among the rust of late summer
flowers like a doll into a tin

Who cares which car or truck
shattered the groundhog’s logic

Far above the malleable half-rib floater,
a sudden unexpected pain

Watch out for power
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

On the Irish coast, a rutted road
traced a winding track along the wind-
scored face of a limestone bluff.

Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups

From the sea came a hand,
ignorant as a penny,
troubled with the salt of its mother,

Once again I’m caught assuming
human privilege, as if only our parts merit names.
We are mere givers of names.

The first word I loved was crepusculo.
How long it took, one u mimicking the other,
volleyed in the syllables’ canyon.

It is hard to explain the light here,
earnest and aerobic light,
not the complacent kind.