I expect you to break through,
Across these shoddy lenses soon,
To burst into view, knowing full well
I will lose you. Why’s it all waiting
And watching with you? Once,
In a cardinal’s dress, you hopped
From mind’s bough to heart’s branch
In one second, slipped on the dark
Vestments of ravens in the next.
I sense your nearness; and it sears.
And though my eyes will slack
From the long fear of blinking
And missing you, I’ll stay poised,
Steadfast, the watch-club’s last.

Our mistakes crack open. Each leaf
veined distinctly,

and we star-made music makers
are finger printed as well.

This is expansion: to stand as One with all.

The mountains a dense
explosion of trees.

Night comes to us sexy,
whispers to us about belief in light.

Words tumble from us. Honesty, a naked
falling.

We linger in the source of gardens.

For two hundred thousand years,
we have been deaf.

We forget meaning, our storylines
repeat the rhythm of our breaking.

on Sam Edes when he’s backslided
all he can stand, blaze orange and camo,
unwashed, sour breath, headed for
the pines, the power cut, the deer blind
before he brakes, yanks the wheel hard,
takes the turn-off he had chosen against,
he’ll still brag about the eight-point rack,
the tenderloin, but now the Holy Ghost
pulls him, at the altar rail your uncle
pumps his hand, bear-hugs him, he goes
down fast, spine of jelly, rags for bones,
brightest orange, shaking on his knees