It must be cold in the ground these winter mornings.
            The man who delivers the paper drives
            up our hill each dawn, and the news arrives

As capable a troupe of super-
stars as we could hope for.
But which one, having dressed

He could be on acid, the way he holds them
to the light and stares. “Wow,
man. Heavy. Oh wow ...”

You’ve left a hole
the size of the sky
in the chair across the table

He labored above the impassable coast
where gulls hovered to their nests on rock,
shy youth worrying his dream-drenched songs.

Vegetables embody overlooked power. Think of your mother
standing over you when you wouldn’t eat spinach
and Bush turning his back on bouquets of broccoli.

On rocky Delos, no births or deaths were allowed
to desecrate the spirits of the stones—
but how did the keepers tell the dying

Once upon a time. A six-year-old boy almost might be raising himself
from the waters of sleep, onto a beach made glass as a wave’s sheet pulls taut.
His left arm props his torso, his legs (still sleeping?) trail behind like a seal’s

Long past that moment,
                I might guess when it was,
                but strangely I have no