You Have Secrets but They’re Nothing Special

Radio signals float over the bay,

whisper to the swelling waves.

The chimney bricks quake slow,

wiggling free from their mortar.

Under the leaves, those oaks

splay themselves against the sky.

When she can no longer sleep,

the cat spends her days twisting

around her own spine—

in her mind she strategizes

a reprieve from birdsong.

She lays love down the first chance

she gets, turns off the lights,

and heads for war.

Quiescent

It’s Sunday and the rain passes through me on its way into the ground.

These tiny dogs I’m watching are alien creatures full of needs

I can’t speak to. Day by day they walk the same streets,

sleep in the same spots, seem to suffer the same appetites.

My life grows small like theirs, scrambles up the back porch

with its angular mountain of steps. Beyond my peripheral

some world is turning, I could see its shadow if only I switched on

the radio or the tv or my phone or my laptop or Alexa—even the

thermostat

sees more of this world than I do, yearns to feed me little pieces of it.

The dogs sleep while I start dinner, the smart fridge screen dark

but humming, aching to join the cat’s cradle of connected things.

If I woke everything up could I say the house was breathing?

Wanting? Same as the little dogs? Same as me? For now,

we are closed off and quiet—a chamber for this smothered day.

Your Hat

For the lady at the grocery store

Your Hat casts a

shadow on the whole world,

it’s an upside-down kingdom peopled

by the red spaghetti of your hair which floats

around the town on top of your cloud-high noggin.

Your Hat is woven from discount sun-bleached dreams,

the well-worn ones you’ve been repeating for years. Here

in the Trader Joe’s, Your Hat goes to battle with the cantaloupe

and a calvary of lilies, and by God I think Your Hat might just win. Your Hat is

a conundrum of incompatible coupons and unamused store clerks working their last

week on the job. Your Hat leads you out the door, and I’m on the stage of a Greek

tragedy, alone among the wine-dark cheeses—in an aisle starved for shade