Steller's Jay at Castle Rock

The animals love me.

This black-crested blue jay just said so.

He flew up to me not eight feet away and told me how important I was to the world. He said I'm in a safe place.

He said I was welcome to stay here as long as I needed.

He said he would be back if I needed him.

He knows I won't need him, but we both know it's important for me to hear.

Now I'm just waiting here for the next miracle to come along.

Miracles don't work that way.

They don't come along.

They crash into you, or you into them, or both together.

They take too much serious energy to manifest into being.

That means you have to give a lot for a miracle to happen.

I can't stay.

I must move on.

To latitude and rotation

or was it platitude and floatation
that pressed you up against the cul-de-sac curb
where all the poplar’s fallen leaves converge?

No, it was latitude and rotation,
a relentless sense of spinning in place until
you can’t see your own orbit

around her. Such minimal oxygen
in atmosphere so thin. A careless kind of latitude
without a proper balance of longitude.

Where 23° 27’
means nothing to you, clockwise, counter-clockwise,
rotating in a tilt always toward her photosynthetic smile and solar flare.

It must have been gratitude and fornication
that settled you into her clogged gutter
until the next gush dragged you down the storm drain.

The proximity of a vision to evasion

Held between thumb and forefinger
is a thought
nothing more
just a thought.

a swirl of clusters
a flash of a shadow on the wall

a caught drumbeat
all hallowed out

So long, she said.
It was the last time I’d see her.
It wouldn’t have been enough anyway.

I scrambled down the stairs the next morning.
She scrambled a hot breakfast while I showered.
We always rode the Scrambler first.
I unscramble letters in a rage
desperately searching for something more.
I never find it.

cotyledon
a seed leaf whose task is complete

Screw the lid tight.
There’s nothing left to see here.
The light must go out.

young seed leaves are a delicacy
devoured in the night by earwigs and sowbugs
I’ve fed too many times

unscrew the bulb
cut the wires
disconnect the electricity

Without the light, I can’t see you.
Without the light, you don’t exist.

So long, I said.
It’s been so long.

Ode to a Quagga mussel

there’s more than just fish in this live-well
clinging to the side of the hull
making wild mussel-love in the bilge

dressed in zebra stripes, faded ones,
not gold and black bands in metallic polish
– cousin Quagga – big stone, loud stone,
can-I-pet-the-rabbits stone
dumb luck to go unnoticed until the drain chokes
you don’t behave like an extinct zebra

wild mussel-love in the bilge
tanked in the lower outboard
waiting to be dunked again

little pennies stacked sideways
but they never fall over
grid overlaid concentric stripes
Greek soldiers with shields overhead
someday the penny will be obsolete

it’s that briny feeling between morning and delirious sleep
where the bed and the body are mostly submerged
held down with unwanted ballast

everything underwater deserves an extra exoskeleton

five days’ reserves
stuck to the side of the hull
waiting for more than just fish

four of seven
unimatrix Dreissena
species 4527
morphological clan
mollusc
D. polymorpha
....– the Zebra mussel
D. caspia caspia
D. stancorici
D. bugensis
....– the Quagga mussel
origin
Dneiper River
Ukraine
Eastern Europe
Planet Earth

tanked in the lower outboard
making wild mussel-love
five days in the bilge

loud stone, transparent stone
increase the drag a bit stone
– I’m moving too fast anyway –
who cares if I start venting fuel

clinging to the side of the hull
there’s more than just fish in this live-well
waiting to be dunked again

prime real estate
track housing
chains of shells
slash and burn stone
whole cities

white paper kites

Cornelius workshopped