Any Excess of Tears Will Collect Around The Little Island
A vivarium with standing water
and passerby left to hold one's own place.
The office of Dr. William Birdsong,
clouding of the interior, gentling an owl,
the clouded leopard.
Our urine is of the father and mother
and the strangers who look into the window
of our likeness, of our dalliance in the shade.
Pass Penny Road, pass Ten Ten Road,
then Optimist Farm Road. Follow the late Ila,
the late Oppie Lee. Eulaia, Iona, the late
Theodus Sneed.
Ardath and Izella. Imogene. Trillis. Leafie.
Clods here. Clouds there.
Dust breeding in the borning place.
It being late, we started home.
Sometimes We Pick The Right Lock
A door is cracked open.
With the opening, the hall light
makes a 1.
A head pokes in to find twin beds
folded down from a wall,
on them some time and some place
lumped under covers.
Warp and weft, the back
of one another's hands,
heads or tails, one hand
washing the other.