​morning lines #119
the peck and peel of love in conflict is the image of crow and rind,
a dark specter, the smell of burnt hair, meat, and loam,
casts an aubergine gloom, and there’s sour-sweet acid against the skin;
the pierce and singe is heightened when understanding and trust evaporate in
the heat of the day, the crow flying off alone with a curl of zest in her exquisite beak
 
morning lines #118
Voices in the morning fog drag heavily upward on air made for thirsty slugs and walks in the Lake District. The clipped conversation could be coming from the west, two yards over. A door shuts with a stiff squawk, caught at the edges on too-old weather stripping or a bloated doorjamb. It’s all about what the water does, whether it moistens, drowns, or taunts.
 
morning lines #117
I want to believe it. That ghosts walk among us—under the ancient and aching bristlecones, the sky sighing—draped in sheets the color of milk. Their sightless black eyeholes seeing absolutely everything. I want to believe it.
 
morning lines #116
“rag & bone new york,” she told me,
conjuring dressed-down wordplay
and trowel-like hands that dig
deeply into clay and dirt,
not to mention the early-1900
rag-and-bone men, bone-grubbers
(today’s can collectors),
carrying their greasy bags and
scavenging rags on top of bones,
the gray-white remnants used for
making knife handles, toys, glue
 
“rag & bone,” she said, and i think
for the umpteenth time, what a
world we live in
 
morning lines #115
writing with a pencil
gives writing a sense of
the turnip’s blood yielding
but more slowly than a drip,
the turnip’s roots the capillaries
that paint the field red,
moistening what was once as
colorless and dry as the first scale of skin
 
morning lines #114
the drugs drag you under,
not unlike the drowning man’s
lethal derring-do,
not so much straight ahead
of a plumb bob
but across the zigzag path 
only a moth has the schematics for

everything i don’t know or understand
floats in on a molecule of dust--dirty and unseen--
like the mites and dog under the comforter with me,
breathing as if muddled, muffled, or mute,
when the dog’s nostril sends out a chord in e minor,
and an ambulance squeals in the distance,
and everything i don’t know or understand
exits on the same molecule out the rear window and
over the neighbor’s weathered and weathering fence

​morning lines #109
the dog jumped from the couch toward the bed,
a shortcut he’s been trying recently,
missing the mark by a miserable mile,
falling against the sharp corner
of the side table to the hard floor;
his life flashing, from dog shelter to what’s coming,
in the choked and choking rise of my voice;
he got up, shook himself off, and walked over to
the light-green water dish for a drink