WE

The insect's soul shed of its carapace.

The hive's former inmates set free.
Power granted to the naked wolf.

The holders of the serpent's key.
Lost shepherds of the lonely trees.

Walkers with the birds and whales.
The tellers of all conceivable tales.

Sowers of the seeds of chance.
Hoping for an opportunity to dance.

One way ticket to a fantasy.
A neat trick to bypass reality with.

A debt exacted for extremes.
Millipedes freed into segments.

Centuries of centurions dreaming dreams.
The guardians of safely locked away remembrance.

The soft face of a spider.
The smooth skin of an oak.

The sharp teeth of a tree.
The eyes of a silver mine.

The fingers of quartz.
The oxygen mask of a fish.

Thus freed the soul of Animus
Mundus implodes into we.

JUMPSTART

When fury rises
and burns the toast





Unbuckled, the world
implodes a windshield.





a Fist flies an immeasurable arc
into the car and grabs a heart.





A star's rays filter in the dawn
on the afternoon rush home from work

____

It is not a heart, it is an ocean
It is not a nervous system, it is rain
It isn't inside us, we are inside it
You are the rock it uses for a pillow

It is not a boat, but the river itself
It doesn't flow until we start swimming
It is not the light; rather, it is our eyes
It is not your pupil, but a garden

They are not your irises they are everyone's.
It is not the rain you are.
It isn't a river until you jump in.
It's not a garden unless you become lost in it
whose flowers belong to no one but ourselves.

It is the stone held onto for warmth,
the one you pluck from your ribcage
and give away.
It is not the warmth you then
receive from another,
but the medium of exchange itself.

We are not the executors.
We are the spare change
it leaves for the homeless

HAMMOCK

for May Swenson



Caught up
under a star
is that where
you really are?

Where do you rest
in this scene
arrested by
a dream...

Abandoned by
a lost cause,
left stranded
out on two paws?