From Pink Chalk, published in 2018.

The Last Loose End
Lawn chair at the curb
hunched next to the trash cans
waiting for pickup
all of them. Poor chair
seized up and bent double
right front leg stuck out straight
in a kind of rigor mortis
Life taking the turns with such speed sometimes
Yesterday
lazing around a glass-topped table
Today
on the way to an undignified burial.

Back at the patio
late home of the decedent
the three surviving chairs and the glass-topped table
are left to mourn
the sun umbrella not quite as distressed
but feeling the loss of course
with even the barbeque grill
experiencing a twinge of mortality.

Well, the garbage truck is making its way down the street
hurry and say good-bye
this is all the funeral there will be
clang
the out-thrust metal leg hits the tailgate
the chair falls in
crushed by the compactor it is gone.
The truck snorts

grinds its gears
lumbers down the street
the empty trash cans left on the curb
alone.

6/21/18
6/26/18

From Clean Canvas, a collection published in 2018.

Transition
i.
Why so difficult
under what circumstances
just explain to me
what on earth
you can be thinking
and will you ever
reconsider?

ii.
I wait for any answer.
I go to the gym one hundred times
attend two plays
cook dinners wash clothes sweep floors
walk with my neighbor ten afternoons
clean the garage once
plant flowers.

iii.
I begin to forget.

iv.
I decide to
discontinue my interest in the topic
stop my subscription to this memory magazine

v.
Some of the trees
put out new leaves as I watch
while others drop limbs
that shatter on the sidewalk
rotten.
Houses shift add subtract rooms
Windows appear. Streets realign.
New intersections
make themselves.

v.
I live here now.

3/8/18
3/14/18
3/15/18