The clock inside the mantid
       egg under the drifted snow,
  the sap clock in the February tree,

Here, in the xeroxed panorama on my desk, a man
is crouching slightly in his spacesuit, leaning
forward, hands swung up, as though about to leap.

 To see the yellow-bellied sapsucker suck sap,
to watch the oystercatcher at his catch,
and bluebird, woodcock, dickcissel, blue goose,

Today we’re going to get to work on the details

The two or three times I saw Lil Wayne
hanging out at the Praline Connection
in New Orleans he had a mouth full of bling

Sitting up, nude, shrouded in twisted sheets, muffling
the travel alarm, she touches him, asking
if feathers have no pigment, that is, if they are clear

After I found my blood in trouble
I could hear its rapid
underground current swell, terrorists

In the trees from Faulkner, Calvino,
and probably as many writers
         as I was starting to know.

One definition of love
is the grocery list, its
shorthand reckoning

Plain and simple: he failed.
Lost a battle. And the angry
Athenians wanted him dead.