Horizons

I don’t like, she said, the tall
trees here stealing my
horizon. Spoken, I thought, like
a daughter of the plains, transplanted
more than once but
not rooted yet, or not
ready to admit it. And here
the horizon still pushes up over
the treetops, and the roots strain and
pull in against the earth’s spin, and I
decide to stay one more day.

Night Comes to the Planet

The traffic noise is a

baseline, the sound of humans devouring

themselves, absorbed in the unclouded

night—no particles survive, no

piston thrum, brake screech, declaration

of exhaust, no radio, horn blast, no

breaking glass or burned rubber

but no redemption either in

a sky that keeps rolling farther into darkness

as the last minivan departs its

assembly line and

accelerates, leaving town.

Preparing to Leave

I’ll need a name and

a map before

I can go.

The rest I can invent.

The name should be as

natural as an old scar, the map too,

at first, topographical, but

later political, historical if

I get lost, and it should fold

to fit unnoticed

inside any story I

might tell.

And when I board an airplane

or bus, or a van pulls over for

my outstretched thumb, I’ll need to

forget the faces of

where I’ve been, forget how

long I’ve been gone.

Placing the Words

Words to him were stones

a few unusual, placed

for effect where needed, but

mostly ordinary, some

more polished than

others, some eroded, others

exploded, melted, cooled, each

picked up for its

shape, color, heft, the

feel of it in his palm before

setting it into the

appropriate stratum, its

lithic syntax, the place

where it falls from

the tongue.