i see you vaguely cupped in twilight
maybe sitting by a window
or maybe outside in the yard
fanning away mosquitoes

the peaches are stunted this year

the word space feels empty
but sometimes it's a place being filled

there are puddles and puddles of silence
in the lake lying languid
and the sunlight festers
on black dirt and sumac roots.

none of this is necessarily true.

but with only a few
days left
i feel driven
to write a poem
even this shitty one about nothing
like a burlap sack under a walnut tree
that has no walnuts

all day
i have sat rocking time
back and forth
the shell of my life cracked into two distinct
moments, back and forth.
back and forth.

that's not entirely true either.

i had a companion, eleven years old.

standing on the porch
we saw a butterfly stumble
with torn wings
whose dull sparkles
forgot to shine.

all of my years in this blog
became packed into one tiny knot.

death is a second cousin dining
with my ex-lover's father,
semper fidelis.
a spider webs the corner of the room;
his heart staggers against his ribs.

a nymph goddess beckons
from a sung dynasty painting
porcelain fingers
streaming black hair

in the hollow palm of midnight
she answers with a lullaby

last night the moon was half empty
neither growing nor shrinking.
it crept out of my window

into the rest of darkness