Snow-Globe

Finally, there is peace and quiet.
From a distance this city might look
like a giant snow-globe, freshly shaken by
some invisible hand, all the building windows
glowing yellow. From back here there are no
beggars in the street, no homeless children,
no girl shivering on a dark sidewalk waiting
for her next trick, no rock star playing God
to a dwindling audience. A fireplace roars,
tries to mute the whistle of the wind as it
lassos the house and pulls the rope tight.

It’s winter in Winnipeg
even the devil knows -
it's best to leave by the back door.

Night, Silent

I would have gulped the silver star
until the black hole of us became
bright; skin illuminated from the inside
like Christmas or a pomegranate reversed,
consumed back to what it should have been.

instead I kept it all on the outside
wished upon a distant star
just before turning out the lights -
I could hear night in all its finery
silent

getting ready to feed.

Un-Earth

It’s time I stopped digging you up -
only to contort you into some new position,
place a fountain pen in your hand, a cigarette,
a daisy with one petal, or a piece of granite
from the lake-shore.

It’s time I stopped digging you up –
to look at you, or tilt your chin towards me.
Once, I removed your tattoos, inked a new one
“He loves me he loves me not …”
I enjoyed watching; pretend it didn’t hurt.

I know you’re supposed to be sleeping,
but I swear I saw your number
come up on my phone last week.

Did you ever find that plane ticket in your pocket
dated a year from the day I placed it there?
Or the love poem I wrote before I knew you?
I wonder if you later read it to someone else, a lover,
her long dark hair splashed across the pillows
your mouth so close to the oyster shell she could hear the sea?

When I dug you up to ask you were turned
away from me. There was no note only a view,
the broad of your back. Only I was left, crouched
in a wheat field, earth clumped hard in my fists.

A First Poem, A Giving In

Under the chatter of stars
let us eat fruit, rotten or ripe.

Climb over me, hip to bone
measure the precise weight

of longing in a tent made of veils.
Your bloodlnes crawl inside me

ants to a hill, stones to a grave
a slice of moon puncturing night.

Scrolls of messages
lie hidden in primeval sands -

lover, dig.

Zoos

I always did detest the pant
the nervous gait beside a fence
perhaps because I understood

captive. An animal only senses
everywhere it needs to go.
Tonight I pace wooden floors

screens hold me hot.
Lightning. Exaggerated
distance. You.

Close enough to chase -
suddenly.

Fear of Flying

You are surrounded by brick
I am behind glass
there are wide marble hallways
somewhere
that we are not allowed to
walk down
I go through a scanner
nothing beeps
still the eternal pat-down
the unloading of pockets
until there is nothing left of us
we tried so hard to fly
above the clouds such realization
that all of this was just
too late

Still Life

Just blooming, Amaryllis. Hand sanitizer, a bottle of corked Chianti to be returned. A bottle of liqueur - Pomegranate. The sound of my cat eating dry food. In the basement the furnace kicks in, all that dry heat sucking moisture out of everything. In the corner, a dead TV, red curtains through the window, nothing but pitch black. Astounded, I catch a reflection, one tomato left in a bowl in the kitchen.