The Weekly Commuter

Night, wide-brimmed,

settles wild wanderings

in our early

American hearts, fatigue

live chains

loathe to lift themselves

yet imperceptibly intertwined

in our legs again. Let’s lay down

by the stream (she knows

she’s older than her name)

and sink in. The poems

we speak in sleep,

thick with reeds and wet

with recent rains, may camouflage

our foreign origins. The moon,

she is a soft lens.

The earths we lure them with

fit inside

their delicate mouths,

just sized

to sift sand.

…

We interrupt

the great nebulas

they spit

with our universal nets,

no yield yet

but gravity

and celestial dust.

We cooled while imitating

waves in paintings,

gracefully lined

with the strain

of nearly breaking.

…

Quiet in our stylized

repetition, we continue

in the same direction,

interrupted only

by young ōhi‘a trees,

at home on our crests

and in our low troughs,

talking together

over the ocean breeze.

Though invisible,

it exhibits

fluid, unctuous shadows

around my shadow.

The fumes, even in my hair,

hoop and halo

then expire

in their own mirage. The rush

of a passing bus

sweeps morning up

in devils and I’m loosed

on the heatstruck

crosswalk. Swiftly,

in the molten flow

of asphalt and medians

and autoelephants,

I no longer sense

the aura you lent.

A recent cup,

cheek-like

in hue and shape,

wonders whether

feeling full

is really better.

Under a red sweater

on the counter

two keys

listen: the cat’s wheeze

a sign nothing’s

pressing. Outside,

leaves wrangle

wild breezes and noon

eases into after.

In the new grass

a cat left his nap,

a sleep shape

where the stems

lie flat.

A naturalist, I collect

naps, but so does the rain

the clouds are threatening

and I don’t mind

giving in

to Spring.

awaiting rain

night descends without stars

deserted streets in winter

Under the hayflower

falling, we found her

seated, selling woven stuffs

in skirt relief

(delicate bird-lice

wax left

besting indigo bleeds).

Patterns, with the needs

of the wearer,

recede. Under the hayflower

falling, she felt

the fabric

folklore, soft

on the tops

of her knees, her feet,

light as lighting the morning

fire’s footfalls, dyed

vast shades of dawn,

twice as deep.

Any number of mounted bells

may ring,

unaware of the labor

their summons

foretell (a peal insists

as well as anything

sweet sounds

may sing

on behalf

of meaner meanings).

Little finger

of a moat

protect one side of this city

from another, neither better

for this strip of bay water.

One freeway

to tuck

under the other:

mother daughter,

shy toddler

of an on-ramp.

A lap of wet clothes

and a bottle,

a tramp and a backpack gang

tagging the insides

of factories.

They leave they’ll leave eventually.

Silt, settling

in your belly,

melting trench songs

men sang

in the days of industry

will fill you up, give herons

a place to step, drink

fish, and all of this,

these sad last

signs of settlement

will muddy-up.