coffee instead of tea

finding an escape from lines of houses

going to sleep past your bedtime

no, it was just an ordinary day
no idea of suburban choke
no way out of a street named after a
president whose name sounds
like a candy.

no, it was building in routine
the time it takes to travel to from a lab &
back & to sweep the floor of a church
for an extra hundred dollars a week.

no, it was growing up, or growing out
remodeling a railway that died in the
sixties, keeping track of hockey players stats
cards that consoled when lined up

and never running away from shadows

the track shifted &
connected to a refinery, a plant
to process the sweet particles
for children's confections

a before & after image

his model railway had
stopped running--plastic people
frozen, dust collecting on their
caps--the times tables
redrawn

nine years since the meltdown

watching time pass in piles of snow

the long weekend, enhanced by snowfall

a disruption, days change meaning, zodiac signs
2,ooo years off in the sky determine
my daily, readable mood

scooped with tea, while waiting for channels to change

a silent sky of snow falls like static, muted

Caught on my tongue, words melt.

START/END

Sugar, when five pounds piled, looks like snow but tastes sweeter.

Anniversary Extravaganza

we have been here
one year--
one hundred thirty-three
posts--

one site
grounded
in cyberspace.

a vist, a walk, a history lesson

warmups & fabric wraps to keep out the wind off the river of ice lined with unnamed statues, so that we all can be a preacher or puritan if we want, or maybe no one remembers the names of those people anymore, they are locked away in archives & literature tests, street-names & the foundations of churches & squares easy pairs like mittens or socks that match, wrap & hold together feedback upon themselves crystalizing at the right temperature to hold time.

delinquent blogger updates

I will make my home

in a southern state (a blue state,

but warm enough to burn cheeks

red)

a home where we’ll name our

hurricanes

like children

watch them go:

Kyle breaks every window on the first floor

Emily smashes the car

the next year Victor floods the basement

a foot and a half of

ocean and rain

and busted pipes

(as long as they don’t break our hearts)

we’ll hang their satellite pinwheels

on the refrigerator

and sigh

they’re only young so long

before they’re gone

taking the basketball,

the cat,

and the

sound from the wind chimes

I’ll be old here

among orange trees, fruit rats, and the smallest

geckos we’ll ever see

darting

under

Spanish moss covered trees

dying like

ballerinas

covered in silver ribbons

pirouetting off a dark stage

gentle and beautiful,

quiet

like sleep