abacus of ordinary things
“So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith”--Springsteen
i
a dog’s dark nails click on the pavement of a Sunday morning, the sky blanketed in fog, silence filled
with more than human voice as winter hastens toward spring, the windows and trees unlock
brashly we make it home
if we listen, only
the chalk moon wearied of its blue ghost sister, unhangs itself down from the wall of black and quarrelling stars
shatters itself in milky shards of reflected light and night dew
off the hook fireflies drop across the firmament, stardust and cottonseed, breath upon the netting
a soon-to-be summer window
in a child’s room the distant country dreams of becoming Earth, dreamcatchers
the night wind, breath wriggles in the wind, the milky way
the light bulb chrysalis and quasar, the world which became you
listen
ii
in a dark palm a child carries dragon seeds of the dead from the aging trees now clipped for a cemetery’s manicure
the bellowed bone of a traveler’s walk, desert time and elapsed taps, the world hides under the covers, but
a couple will make it home tonight
remember
iii
a screen door clangs, the cowlicks in your hair, the pigeon scratch shaped by cooing shadows, twist of fate counter clockwise
alchemy of recall, words stubborn, thoughts obdurate as your kisses in the morning, all the boys you turned away*
we are torn
remember you too but tonight we shall turn
toward home in the clicking singing together, for the lonely
*the song you know
for: Wan lin
