Didn’t a poet say cracks are how light gets in everything?

I’m probably mixing that up.

But this is how I think. Give me a box,

and I’ll fill it with dirt

or fill it with water

or fill it with both

and trouble that mire

with whatever stick I happen to find.

If They Hand Your Remains to Your Sister in a Chinese Takeout Box

If They Hand Your Remains to Your Sister in a Chinese Takeout Box

If an urn won’t do because ceramics

are not biodegradable and you need your ashes

buried in the plot next to your estranged wife

where you can help her feed the worms,

nurture soil, and lift trees into the sky—

If your obit is scrawled on notebook paper,

ripped out and photocopied,

rigid edges and all, and lines still show up

faint like soap scum collected

on a mirror above the motel sink

you were found slumped beneath—

If they hand your remains to your sister

in a Chinese takeout box, give thanks

for the giggling of your niece and give thanks

for this moment when, after tearing

a liquor-stenched wound down the middle

of this family, it for once won’t be mentioned

as they gather. Take solace that the plastic bag

carrying you to the cemetery will,

instead of joining you underground,

spend decades holding hands with a breeze

wandering around some landfill somewhere

repeating in bold red font,

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

Paper Crane on Letting Go

Paper Crane on Letting Go

Your friendship with wind

may be the difference

between playing with fire

and teaching it to dance

like chiffon

your hair blown wild.

You learn to recognize the sound

but can’t describe the rustle

of your deciduous head.

Pull the past behind you

like a silk kite

and the secrets of flight and nest

will escape you

even as fall sheds along the lawn

and you calculate

the leaves’ volume

from a window.

Measure the value of seeds

carried earth to earth

in your pockets

their weight and shape

the lives of lives

you bury everywhere

and viceroys will whisper

the myth of you

to cocoons

and the smallest of us.

I haven’t counted

the universes

that collapse when you sneeze

verses that flitter

when you open your mouth

but your lightning-strike laughter splits

the sky when you do

and I know your generosity

will be rewarded by the breeze

that tugs at your kite

the breeze that knows

you will relent.

Hum for the Bolt

Hum for the Bolt

It could of course be silk. Fifty yards or so

of the next closest thing to water-to-the-touch,

or it could just as easily be a shaft of wood

crumpling a man struck between spaulder and helm.

But now, with the rain making a noisy erasure

of this town, it is the flash that arrives