Fragments for the End of the Year

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version

of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don’t know

if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring

itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas

as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders

the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.

The one we fly through and the one

we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills

the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.

Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest

not fully melted but enough.

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.

“Fragments for the End of the Year” is from How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press, 2009).