oh honey, the starry night

my bliss is not the treacle of the hive nor the sap
of the tree but the spin of the earth on a silver
night. there is a spinning in my head when the road
is dark and my step is light and the lights in the houses
give away the good neighbors with all their spinning plates
and if a window were open you could hear the ringing
of their forks and the singing of their knives

if they opened

the door just a crack their cat would steal into the night
with a slice of yellow light. I spin and they spin and the earth
spins and the cat spins and when I look up into the sugar-flecked
sky it begins to melt and oh my god it tastes like we are all
the same dust.

family prayer to patron saint of un

fast backward starry night
to time before fat slap

uncry weep girl
part hand from face
ungasp sharp breath

father
undrink
unyell
unslur word slurry
unmud loud mouth
father
unsing drink
undrink again

girl unclasp your momma’s hand
and greet your daddy at the door
where dust motes float in slice of final
evening sun
             and then          undrink            amen

in which robins appear

trust me.
I was born this way:
half woman / half weed /
feet in the ground
& a mouthful of mud.

believe me
when I tell you
I crawled from my
seedmother & shouted
halleluja let there be
green. she fed me dung
& straw & I was thankful.

but today it snows.
through one brown
eye I saw a winter robin
whinny past. it’s true:
some believe the dead
are near when robins appear.

verily, snow falls &
falls & robins are near.