The fat doves allowed the juncos
a little space on the perch-
plenty of seed for everyone.
It was quiet, the smaller birds
stifling their song
so they’d have a place to rest.

The man watching seemed
to enjoy complaining about
the mess and the noise yet
he kept filling the feeder with seed.
It was an uneasy peace.

It’s a quiet destruction
she keeps to herself
which nobody notices
because of the windstorm.

There’s no safe way to articulate
desire when superimposed
over an existing portrait
without losing some definition.

The wind shapes the hills
while she sits somewhat still,
feeling like a sand mandala
blown across burgeoning winter.

Marking time with mechanicals
is an exercise in the superfluous.
River rocks know etchings of real time,
wind and water wearing away
anything from yesterday.

I like to stand on the hill
with the wind sweeping
along my body, through my hair,
imagining my yesterday
worn away.

Things change rapidly
while I stand still
and let the wind
take the worry of time
somewhere else.

The street was narrower
than I had imagined.
Brighter. There were people
bustling at the crosswalks
in their suits and trendy dresses.
A few loafers loitered on stoops.
We don’t have stoops in the country.
We have porches. And crickets.
But there were stoops and taxis
and museums and weird fried foods
at each corner. And there were
gaudy scarves for sale on the piss sidewalk
and a few trees encased in concrete.
I had imagined this neighborhood
many times from books and movies,
grittier, darker, more sparse
and glamorous. It was early 1990’s
and terror was a movie and not yet
a way of life. I had years of daydreams
ahead of me, a galaxy-full in my own head.
But this street was real
and live and when I walked back
and forth on it a few times, I saw it
for the gem it was, shining
not in technicolor but in sunshine.