It is as if you had arrived in a brown basket on a porch near St. Paul, a piece of bonnet poking out the one side and a wintry mix coming down. You couldn’t help but look up, mouth an O, but all you could see were four sets of dark eyes staring back down, blinking. Or more like a great tumbledown from a brilliant sun to a duller one, the fall through space across a frigid crosshatching of having-all-but-given-up-on-yourself and for what: a guest room with a busted lock and a Princess phone?
the dead
are dead”
hushed but
busted wide
with want
that Jim
still begging
for one
last go
and Francie
so starved
she’s throwing
down fries
just minutes
before closing
those eyes
of hers
and the
dog’s ball
was buried
last fall
but what
a shedder
she was
that pup
this one
time gobbling
up chocolates
with franks
poor girl
nearly died
then but
didn’t so
look
the sun
it’s white
the wind
it’s up
the bits
of straw
skitter across
granite and
grass these
rose petals
dying, yes,
but still
so fragrant
nonetheless
ruminationville 