The city was a Tiffany blue 

faux leather jewelry box 

with a dozen compartments 

filled with faux ballerinas and pearls 

and a little mirror to check earlobes. 

She kept the city in her closet 

to visit whenever she was feeling 

cosmopolitan. 

The sidewalk hummed a tune from 1954 

(when eyeglasses and bras 

pointed the way to quick ruin). 

Decades rumbled from beneath 

layers of paved crosswalks 

-like Poe’s telltale highway, 

but the road craved a Greyhound, 

not retribution. 

A porter longed to punch a ticket 

– but there was no train. 

A woman was too busy 

to notice rain on a scurrying rat’s tail. 

The case would be shut yet unlocked 

as she imagined people inside 

running in circles but slowly, 

like licking away at a lollipop. 

A quiet afternoon, 

sun streaming 

sideways through dark 

curtains, leaves 

rustling, faded nearby. 

Capturing light 

and moving it along 

in the shape of 

skin and latitude, 

it’s a simple “touch me”

 written in code 

on moth’s wings. 

Before and after, 

a plaintive call 

to find a place inside someone 

to hold and be held. 

The birds don’t question heights 

or currents when they fly. 

Bravado is letting go; 

we are both dark 

and heavy on our own.

The green hill shone

in the summer sun

as the lone island

among coal banks

and pines.

We danced

like lightning bugs.

It was sweltering

beneath the unforgiving sky

and the day was so full

of heat and dust;

relief came only

in dreams.

Post-storm clouds moved faster

than deer at a switchboard;

the chatter is mostly navigation-

like housewives in molasses.

The navy hasn’t reported many UFOs

because their desert is already blue.

Skies don’t have dialects.

She looks up with less and less joy.

When he sits quietly for too long,

he sees spies, which turn out to be

his eyes closing in on window screens,

lashes lashing, lashed.

Post-storm air tastes like licking

a railway track but the romance

of going someplace makes the tongue

dance a little and sing ‘Amen’.

I’ve waited a long time to see the moon

and sometimes it seems

she’s been watching me

and maybe waiting for a reaction.

I don’t think she knows how thrilling

it is to learn her craters.

I already know I don’t measure up

but we can still dance to her light.

The hills at night almost demand it.