June 2026

wild fools

beyond the towers where the guards stand waiting

Oh, you are a writer? Give us a hero story, then! We’ll get the popcorn, let’s go.

I am not very interested in the hero story.

Tell us about the dragon! How it was slain and everything is safe again!
I cannot. I have no faith in the premise.

I have always loved dragons. Imagined ones, metaphorical ones. Besides, I tend to talk to lizards when I walk.

I tire of the way the story must always be about the hero, or those waiting for the hero, or those tending the hero, or those preparing the world for the hero’s return. I want to know who kept the living going while all these heroes were off on their quests. I would like to hear the lizard tell what happened.

It is curious how often the dragon dies only for its guarded fortune to change hands. The gold. The virgins. Another castle.

I have become suspicious of people who can state what they are about. Perhaps this is required now. A mission statement. A brand. A clean line of purpose. Meanwhile the shadow goes about its work.

I know only that my blind spots arrive in multitudes. So, I keep watch instead. I make little shelters. It’s much more bird feeder than monument.

Hi, birds.

There you are.

Take what you need.

I have no illusion that I am feeding you.

You are feeding me.

Language feels this way, too. I’m not climbing Jacob’s ladder or pulling a sword from a stone. I am near a hearth, tending a loaf. I keep making the same loaf, because wherever I am, there are always hungry mouths. Take what you need.

Hi, birds. There you are again. Beyond the towers, where the guards are waiting, the gardens have begun again without the hero. Come eat.

the hidden kept

care and language

I pack a spoon
in my daughter’s lunch.
Then another,
in case the first
should disappear.

Love misplaces things.
I try to preempt the loss.

When a line begins
to murmur
I swing it by the neck—
a soft animal
I mistake for a rope.

I call it poem,
but it writhes,
wants teeth,
wants blood,
won’t feed me
when the guards come.

Just stands there,
quiet and damp,
like something I’ve left
in the sun too long,

then tried to water.

Now my throat closes.
Words spin.

No one comes
with a towel,
no one checks the floor
for shards.

She may find the spoon.
Or this one beneath it—
the one I mean to hide,
a love for when
forgetting comes.

This poem recently appeared in the spring edition of MUSE Literary Journal.

hello, stranger

on skinks, swans and other guides

I like the creatures no one chooses as a spirit animal. Skinks. Ice worms. The little dog whose back legs are supported by wheels and who is walked faithfully around the block by a small old woman. If approached from the opposite direction, there comes a moment when she looks up, surprised, with a wide mouth and kind eyes.

The bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, may live over one hundred years in the cool depths near Greenland. Or the shark of the same region arriving at reproductive age no sooner than the end of the first century alive.

Also swamp sparrows.

Cephalopods.

Bagged goldfish.

The as-yet-unnamed ones, still undiscovered.

The swan of Hans Christian Anderson’s Ugly Duckling, who does her best to fit in with the duck family she meets upon hatching, having no way to know that the egg she came from had only rolled away from its proper nest. Whose attempts at doing duck things fail the more she becomes her swan self.

At a formative age, I decided to be done with the person I seemed to be, and so I set about making a new self. I went about this the way a young, old-feeling person might: by cobbling together suggestions from available sources. Having decided I was missing something vital to the project of becoming, I occasionally took seasonal employment in places I had yet to visit. In the Sierra Mountains, I found unexpected teachers and learned to sing while walking so the black bears would know I was coming.

I also tried smoking while writing, like Joan Didion or Tom Waits. The experiment failed almost immediately. And yet. If I vomit, will that be the old self leaving? I persisted.

On New Year’s Eve, outside a restaurant, the old self remained.

Later that week, I left the just-opened pack of cloves on a wall at the edge of a Vons parking lot, hoping that whoever found it would take it as the kind of serendipitous surprise that announces fortune taking a turn toward some unexpected wonder. That they might pause to enjoy their find and feel themselves understanding that this place, routinely referred to as the Vons parking lot on Tamarack, is so much more.

That they might see it suddenly: an ancient geography of unknown forces.

And be moved to some greeting, however hushed.

Hello, powerful stranger.

That this discovery might nudge into being the possibility of an astonishing response from this sudden sanctuary. Which, while wordless, would sound the body like an urgent whisper.

Come here.

a short history of subtraction

with misunderstandings re: freedom

First attentions focused on survival, and survival appeared to require a truth. It would be singular. Properly applied, it was supposed to offer liberation. Instead, it invoked additional struggle.

Then came another approach: disappearance. Stones managed it, and certain fish. Entire civilizations, even. With so little remaining after the act, results are inconclusive.

Some seek security by sharing every feeling. Others store provisions in hidden rooms. One strategy involves carrying everything. Another takes nothing at all. No method proved universally reliable.

On the other hand, there are many ways to die. Neglect remains popular. Repeated transplantation has produced mixed outcomes. It is possible to survive by developing shallower roots.

The gliders seemed promising. They moved across the water without disturbing it, attended by doubles made entirely of light. From a distance, the arrangement appeared effortless.

Several years were devoted to the study of reflection. Several more to subtraction. One working hypothesis suggested that freedom might consist of becoming lighter. This hypothesis eventually collapsed.

The way of the ray turned out not to be available. It could pass through what those of earth were required to carry. Below: buried bodies, hidden boons, forgotten names, and other dense materials.

At first this seemed tragic. Later, less so.

The discovery arrived gradually, as weather does. By accumulation. Particles gathering at altitude, suspended in vapor, waiting to rain.

By then many necessary pieces had already been removed. They remained scattered across the hills. Under the pink moon, they resembled sleeping animals.

Recovery efforts continue.