Puff Of Smoke Poems

Drenched
is when
the best ideas
come somewhere
between lather
and rinse. Plans and poems
float over the plastic curtain
looking for me.
Quick write them
down before they dissolve
and rinse away.

Say that
In the shower
a cascade of poems
fell all over me
soaking my hair
mixing it up with
the lavender soap
washing clear the
mind’s secret compartments
(the trinkets those corners hold)
so odd locating the soapy latches
and springing them open

not that we could
He was big—
not hawk, owl, eagle
certainly not crow or dove or robin
cardinal, blue jay, chickadee
our entire, combined, list of
Possibilities.

He lifted up from the forest’s edge
circled once above us
then a slow, slow glide away
As if he heard us wonder
As if giving us time to know

No matter. We were not clever
enough.
And though we watch
that patch of woods
question itching each time
he hasn’t returned which
despite the itch
may be the better gift—
our own particular mystery.

Sky of course
below that
a frayed garden glove
Dentyne wrapper
Bud Light can, pristine
Red Bull, crushed
Pennysaver delivery box
decapped by
a rogue snowplow
Used cap gun circles
Ordinary blue list

But the road wants
to make a poem
Road says Here, let me—
Beneath a mailbox
discarded magazine
still in plastic so
the cover shows
through winter grime and damp
blue title, the words cloudy
but legible—
Happiness Digest

Willingly or not
I am a student of Teenglish—
perpetual translation
in a class that never ends

Today’s phrase is
Awesome Sauce
for no reason except
a teenager
was carrying it around
all day long
and kept dropping it
over and over
and over
into my brain

He is suddenly
devouring them as if they
were sweet as sports
and sunny days spent
somewhere far from school
This formerly
recently
decidedly
uninterested in books boy

So though, like prayer, my only
words should be, Thank you,
Instead I ask
Kwame Alexander
Sharon Creech
Ron Koertge
Jacqueline Woodson
all of you, authors of spare
and perfect lines
leavers of huge comforting
margins of white space
I know
(I do know)
this is much harder than it looks
but
could you
please
write faster?

The fugitive snow hides out
at the edge of the field
where scrub brush becomes forest
The last of the snow
shelters in the cool shade
a slender shadow of its former self
while we, in shorts tee shirts flip-flops
bask in brightness
hiding from nothing
waving goodbye

dusty and rumpled
winter weary we emerge
waving to the sun

like the flowers who
will surely follow, we stretch
our whole bodies up

april showers may
bring flowers but april’s bags
are overflowing

dropping bits of green
occasional crocuses,
small bewildered birds

Rain falls on the roof
Longs for nothing
Does not dream of
How cozy it sounds
On the roof of a home
Does not shake off
How bleak it echoes
On office roof, on warehouse,
On thick brick school
Or highway underpass

Rain falls on the roof
Longs for nothing
Except to keep falling
Doing its work in this world
Not dreaming how it sounds
Like poems on the ceiling
Or how it washes the world
Till it greens

Twenty-six years
is a long time
to do anything
and so I didn’t.
Packed Away
is the label
on this box
of memories—
good ones
old and faded
buried beneath
the sharper days
swimming in
that box of sharks
glad the strong tape
mostly
holds this carton closed