NECESSITIES

     1

 The obligatory whorls
of the red rose

on almost every stem,
as if beauty

and redundancy
were one and the same.

 

 

   2

 The way a fugue can seem
sad yet reassuring,

someone always ready
to carry on from where

you—which one is you?—
leave off.

What you think we’re carrying,
that is something else. 

NOTES

It’s hard not to laugh
at the frantic zig-zags

of the cabbage moths—
one so like another—

tying loose bows 
in air.

 

    *

 

A half degree warmer
on the hottest day
in the hottest year
on record.

Something to make note of.
Averages

playing goose, goose, duck
in the valley of the shadow.

  

    *

 

Music has so many ways
to end where it started.

Only Mozart laughs at us
as he makes it happen.

We’re back—
or close enough?

A half-note higher here
to liven things up

KINKS

Loops and scribbles
of electrical wire

around the bare pole
almost pretty.

Almost summer
Almost Xmas—

desiccated exchanges,
almost nostalgic

Ritual bankruptcy:
kink in the supply chain;

the absence of bees.

SELFIE

    1

How the 
hard rings
stack up.

 

    2 

Light on the branches,

pairs smaller
with each fork.

     3 

Selfie, autie, bird:

one thrills itself
awake with chirps.