NECESSITIES

     1

 

The obligatory whorls

of the red rose

 

on almost every stem,

as if beauty

 

and redundancy

were one and the same.

 

 

   2

 

The way a fugue can seem

sad yet reassuring,

 

someone always ready

to carry on from where

 

you—which one is you?—

leave off.

 

What you think we’re carrying,

that is something else. 

NOTES

   

It’s hard not to laugh

at the frantic zig-zags

 

of the cabbage moths—

one so like another—

 

tying loose bows 

in air.

 

    *

 

A half degree warmer

on the hottest day

in the hottest year

on record.

 

Something to make note of.

Averages


playing goose, goose, duck

in the valley of the shadow.

  

    *

 

Music has so many ways

to end where it started.

 

Only Mozart laughs at us

as he makes it happen.

 

We’re back—

or close enough?

 

A half-note higher here

to liven things up

KINKS


Loops and scribbles

of electrical wire

 

around the bare pole

almost pretty.

 

Almost summer

Almost Xmas—

 

desiccated exchanges,

almost nostalgic

 

Ritual bankruptcy:

kink in the supply chain;

 

the absence of bees.

SELFIE

    1

 

How the 

hard rings

stack up.

 

    2

 

Light on the branches,

 

pairs smaller

with each fork.

     3

 

Selfie, autie, bird:

 

one thrills itself

awake with chirps.