From the Collection Shake Until Cloudy

At some point I stopped stopping

to write, life a mark of living not clicking.

I wore verbs around my neck

swam to think in lengths

and stretch the small of my back.

Don’t picture me pausing

to take a photograph

I wrote about syntax in Frost

not the woods.

In subsequent years I wondered

what attention was, yours, mine, the

hours I displaced in proximity

learning a metal song in

quarters of light, pretending to score

dinner like a tableau, reconstructing mirrors

in the wild nest of country living.

False blankets, rose algorithm; the man

descended some stairs and cached

several years of our lives; it was

intended. I practiced a speech to certain men:

You are small and I will pluck

your mouths and plant them

in a river where no one

can hear what you think.

When I remember the imagination

it sings.…