Cecil Vortex

They are slippery too.

by

Teach a man to catch worms and perhaps
he will be fortunate enough
to find some worms.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps
they will elude him.
Because worms are crafty.
But give a man a worm, and he can split it in two!
And then he will have
two worms!
I’m asking nicely now:
Won’t you give a man a worm?

Being a Goose

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do you remember being a goose?
do you remember flying in pairs
your neck pulled long and straight
warm feathering into the wind
your boney beak bobbing
far out in front to beats
pulsed sideways
by your partner’s heart?

Call the Water

by 
Is it enough
to call the water
black to talk about
the swirls, the crack in
the floor of this Bay
That steams up
sleep evaporating
soaking into
a newspaper headline
till it has mighty heft
Is now a good time
to chalk it all up
this swirl and this crack
this slow-dripping heft 
to some sort of
vague, tectonic displacement?
Some foamy kerning surge?

The weatherman says

by

“The eye of the storm
never hit land
although obviously the eye wall did.”
Obviously.
Like now we’re all supposed to know what an “eye wall” is.
Meanwhile: I’m having these dreams
where Mr. Roarke was originally
Tattoo and he’s saying
“The Plane, The Plane”
in rolling tones with a sweeping hand.
And then he gets promoted and the new Tattoo comes in.
And the new Tattoo thinks “Alright! I’ve got a job with upward mobility!”
But he’s wrong about that.
And those white seaplanes keep dipping down
slowing to a stop
while the eye wall of Tattoo
becomes dark, clustered, clumped.
Obviously.
As he floods on the inside.

Hi

by

Sometimes
when people walk by
I go to say “hi” to them
but nothing comes out,
I just open and shut my
mouth with a
dry whisper
and I think:
I must look like a lizard to them,
like a big, hairy, rumpled lizard
with a tiny
tongue.