SPRING

I wake up in questionable light.

The blurry walk to the train,

the facts seem undefined.

Temperature is what thermometers

measure, nothing more

understood. Rat birds in the subway,

excellent buskers. One thinks,
 

Dark days. I read on a blog that

whatever it is you’re not questioning

is probably the problem. The problem

with being smarter than I was

as a kid is the lack

of improvement, a blanket

sameness. One thinks, Malice—

or somebody says it.
 

Radioactive decay.

TWO DREAMS

Beginning with a line from Verlaine

An ancient terra cotta faun

laughs on the green,

or a chipped ceramic deer

smirks on the lawn.

I can shift it back and forth.

We’re on a spring-day stroll;

we will the world springy.

Running up the hill

in his dream, John said:

I’m turning into a gazelle,

then did. You’re making this up,

I say. He seems proud of

his transmogrification, still.

Per usual, I was me:

my car veered toward the edge

of the half-built highway

trying to form a bridge

o’er a bleak western scene—

the older I get,

the more I see the seams

of the conspiracy.

The pond’s all water

again, and the geese

are blasé, they accept this

as the new normal.

What happened next.

The hillside went swampy,

he felt doubt and regret.

If I don’t wake up before

I fly off the ledge,

it just stops being scary,

like I’m watching a movie.