I find myself most alone 
When I believe I am striving for glory. 

These times, cool and sharp,  
A monument of moon-white stone 

lodges in place near my heart. 
In a dream, my children  

Glisten inside raindrops, or teardrops. 
Like strangers, like seeds of children.  

I will only be allowed to claim them 
if I consent to love everyone’s children. 

If I consent to love everyone’s children, 
Only then will I be allowed to claim them, 

My strangers, my seeds of children, 
Glistening inside raindrops or teardrops 

In my dream. Children 
Lodged in place near my heart— 

A monument of moon-white stone, 
Cool and sharp. 

I believe I am striving for glory 
When I find myself most alone. 

^{for P.C.}

My friend grieves while we search 
for an authentic experience, like tacos 
in hand-made corn tortillas. On Zarzamora, 
Letitia’s is busy, so it must be good and real. 
Early April—Lent specials in cursive 
on posters outside. We park near
an unexpected cluster of purple flowers, 
short and wild like a sudden storm. 
We kneel. I think of Anthony of Padua, 
the patron saint of lost things. Both of us 
draw closer. The flowers speak to us. They say—
existence and persistence are the same thing. 
              A brisk spring wind brings sweet 
              peppers and onions, oil and fish.

^{—after William Wordsworth}

The world is too much with us. Late and soon
it’s morning, phone in hand, and a screen on my wrist powers
on to report the no rest I had. News, a tragedy—so easily ours—
already breaking as I crack my eggs. Rage and prayers, rage and prayers, a boon
for the tycoon’s fear-campaign, clicks for the zillionaire buying up the moon.
Ad, ad, an AI figment, someone squawking, someone hawking—hours
consumed, of this only life, and who is left in the garden, who is tending the flowers?
I am trying to hear the birdsong through the auto-tune
of all this ubiquitous engineered crooning, but a podcast informs me silence will be
extinct by the weekend, gone like thought and the good kind of alone. Peace is outworn;
it’s chaos that feeds the algorithm, no likes for the actual, the tangible. No lea
without a billboard promising Hell as if it isn’t here. But don’t be forlorn, 
I’m sold—the world is yours! (after this ad) unending and enhanced on a screen. Don’t mind the sea
at the door. Time for a selfie, suggests my phone. A filter. I can add (for free!) horns.

Count me among the noon risers who stumble,
dazed and bad-haired, from the nest midday,
pecking the crazed dirt for half-torn moth, 
pear’s white core, severed worm. I’ve never 
been one to trill at chink of dawn, to hop, 
skip, chirrup before full sun. I’m better 
at picking over crumbs, stitching a quilt
from what’s left, remaindered, given up
for gone. Better at betting the careless 
will miss the best. Count me among
the nightbirds who sip starlight, a guitar’s
fading strains. Find me where moondust 
swirls in streetlamp glow and stray dogs sleep.
What clings to the bone is most sweet.

must look so small, undetectable even,
from the vantage point where I imagine 

a god could see me, and I do sometimes  
imagine a god like a sentient star

out beyond where our instruments 
could find it, then I talk myself 

out of the image. Out of the concept
entirely. From a distance, I know 

I’m an ant tunneling my way 
through sand between plastic panels, 

watched—or not—from outside. 
My puny movements on this planet, 

all the things I’ve done or built 
with my own body or mind, seem 

like nothing at all. But from the inside 
this life feels enormous, unlimited 

by the self—by selfness—
vaster even than the sparkling 

dark it can’t be seen from.