Something so heavy with meaning all we can do     is drag our hands across the surface itching to define to fixas a compass point                               navigating what I thought I understood because I lived within its skin and yet      …

SLEEPING WITH JANE Again I mutate as we move throughthe old park, ready to launch past the spectral-fired flowers, past the Japanese elm sighingalongside the swarm of Jizo statues,bald little monks tall as wine bottles,each transmitting a silent symphony of grief—Jizo, protector of unborn babies. Jizo, an army of stone guardians stalwart in cardinal colored capsand bibs—I rise above the…

Killer whales have stopped reproducing. Polar bears are eating their cubs.  Koalas abandon their young. Breathless,nose low to the brush to keep from choking on rising smoke,they run towards the thousands, pounds of food we airdroppedwhere earth stopped burning or flames just hadn’t reached yet,guilt for our part in this end or fear it would come for usthe same.…