The red-tailed hawk pierced my 

section of sky. He was strong, 

focused, deliberate. Like a sky sculptor. 

He may have power over his currents 

or it may be the wind gives up 

in the face of stern beauty. 

There’s no replacing touch, unseen. 

Lights are a distraction from the wind 

slapping me in the face but 

I don’t notice the pain really. 

She’s lingering like a wounded firefly

somewhere amid the hedges 

but I don’t think her wings ever worked. 

Choosing to stay still is a myth. 

I’ve taken to wearing moonstone 

more frequently than pearl 

and I like to dream about trees. 

Like soft rock in a cool climate, I am 

shaped, turned, colored by incessant 

banging of sunbeams on mountains. 

The softest parts haven’t worn away. 

They had trouble keeping pace 

in a wood of succession, not quite 

understanding they were lost. 

The horizon is like a make-believe friend 

when deep in the forest; a gust of 

comforting warmth a welcome mystery. 

Endings are life-affirming and rhetorical. 

The days feel like we’re looking at

the same sculpture over and over

but with a slight pivot of the plinth

so that the view isn’t quite the same

but the body remains unmoved.

The chisel marks are a wonder but

it’s sad and cold and very still.

It’s mid-January at world’s end 

and they’re making milk out of everything: 

goats, pencils, and non-ironic GPS. 

Wild boars are slowly taking the suburbs 

while homeowner associations cling 

to pre-measured shrubberies. 

Children know about racism and saffron 

but I recall the days of chalk 

and skinned knees. 

Will there be nostalgia for phone wires 

or will we have radar to navigate 

since the sun will have burned our retinas?

How do you feel, he asked? 

Thwarted, she answered, 

with swollen eyes and a sleepy gaze. 

It was too much to ask to stay contained 

inside that white shirt. So she didn’t. 

But somehow the dream turned 

from an open sky to a lizard gaze 

as 4500 fingers pressed buttons 

tilting the world a little to the left, 

leaving a trail of swallows and 

a rainbow of marshmallows to the right. 

How is your flight, he asked? 

Burningly happy, she answered, 

as they neither understood the pain 

nor could read directions 

as written in clouds.