May 19th, 2015

on the beach awaiting the next 
shipwreck mercy I read of base 
jumpers raining to their deaths like 
bullets parachutes spilling 
confetti now there are car accidents 
lining up on the guardrails just 
you check the news a woman 
froze to death on Mount Adams
wind crushing the print of her
face in snow as the rest of
us dined made love and listen
I'll tell you how my 
grandmother slipped out 
of this world the way a vixen 
slips between trees on a crisp 
morning she was there then 
wasn't and so it goes
a catamount kills a bicyclist out 
west no reason cancer is a shadowed 
stranger waiting behind trees 
downtown time has it in for us 
all & yes with these words I stick
your blind finger in the socket
that could shut or open
a flailing heart but for despair 
or love if loving you imagine 
viscerally the fall bones powdered
against schist how sad your face
caked in zigzagged daggered
rime the giddy zither of car metal 
before gravity marries mass the lean of a
bicycle standing alone in a corner a
trackless route through the trees 
the fox takes before it removes its
foxness from your knowing with 
a permanence that will not go 
away or make sense but if you 
know these things and believe 
and in knowing believing burn 
perhaps also you see this is 
exactly what you walked 
the beach to witness 
the tide oh the tide everything
it takes away yes but also 
everything it washes up.