What a shadow wants
Some landscape
of music,
where you fall
in the dark places
and silence.
Some wall where
they leap,
like strangers
amid a fire,
dancing.
To become, and
then recede —
light will fail you.
Night will
become me.
Lilith Everything
Each day
more beckon,
with copper necklaces,
prayers on bits
of green paper,
whispers that
I am hers.
And hers.
I turn away.
I carry my
bad marriage.
And I
yearn for sleep.
A Unicorn Retreats
For six months or more
dancing in the mask
you are
copper, purple —
all in all
rarely-sighted
yet always gnawing
at the fence.
Greening in the tide
In memory of Lawrence Carradini
I summoned you
on the midnight shore.
Piping plovers darted
among the rushing
waters, pebbles,
everything
that would fall.
But, we stood,
holding this night
like a cathedral of dark.
Blue-green, growing colors —
waves in refrain,
let us sing
sing this night
into our breath,
into our veins.
Then we can retreat
to land, once whole.
Zira
Black dog
waits for no one.
The street light
pools,
purple,
lightning
that has failed.
Still,
she looks up,
all moon
and claws.
She walks
for someone
to find her,
she walks
for the end of night.
