a sea, bordered by blue windows

(seattle, april 2011)

a true story: 2 priests walked into the bar last night : the tall one was from miles city, montana, & he told me his fantastical story-- the story of how his family arrived there & continued, steinbeck-style, as migrant farmers, to the pacific northwest : i told him a tired 33 year long tale, van winkle-style, of my arrival in seattle & he proclaimed my path unbelievable-- untenable at best : i asked him, worried-like, how one might go about making up a life & the conversation ended :

outside, down the street, a red fox squirreled around a collection of greening trees & leafed eastward : home, perhaps :

(seattle, april 2011)

she dreams of, & paints, fruits & vegetables from different parts of the country : a georgia squash resting on a california lettuce of acrylic : maybe a north dakota carrot nearby : & all of washington's onions rolling toward the ocean across a pale dirt :

when without paints she cuts up & pastes collages of the same sort : i once witnessed her place a pear floating in the sky among some painted clouds : it was raining seeds : & that was the last of the collages :

(seattle, march 2011)

in the morning she wakes up thinking of all the empty busses rounding the city at night, when no one is looking : when she breathes in, the street lights flicker and cut out : when she opens her eyes the quiet busses fill with wanton babies caught in conversations of paramount concern : will living always seem a rhetorical act of incompletion? asks one, while looking out the window : must we teethe? says another : & finally, in chorus, why not flowers all year round? :

(seattle, march 2011)

dear whoever is listening : i'm not too frightened of now or where my mind might take me tomorrow, but i'm terrified of you not noticing : oh, & whenever i see a pit-bull my body does exactly what it's not supposed to do : i tense up & my heart starts doing kart-wheels, which makes pit-bulls a bit wary of me : but as for us, next time you see me looking out toward the boats, or up to the trees, or alone, looking to the floor on a bus-- let's take special notice of each other : & make this our secret :