The Cinquains

# 1

SUNDAY DOGS

dogs sing

to rain days filmed

at dusk, music their howls make

tuned to jays teasing cedars as

cats wake

SKIN TYPE

perfect

is her body

wearing nothing but skin

seated before an underwood

on fire

SEA SNOW

snow keels

on harbor and

hull akin, while stern’s sons

tastes sea port and pestled bone, born

hope swells

WITH EACH WINTER

my dog

at play in drifts

of pale treasures, hails me,

“frolic, brother? we have but few

years left”

CARDINALS IN BRUMAL GRACE

red birds

poised in arboreal

festooned in rime, seek loam

like blood flecks on pools of ghosts

at rest

LAST DAY OF JANUARY

coffee

pitch and piping

favors poor, antique

hands which pour paths to fervor

once more

VARROA DESTRUCTOR

Honey,

combs over our

hive, mind my manners as

I swarm and drone on for your sting,

Queen Bee

FOLK SINGER

Front row,

I nervously

eat the ticket I stole as

she stops singing to rest and smile

at me?

THE COMEDIENNE

Stop me

if you have heard

this one, but rooms of fools

do not earn your warm wit even on

cold nights

NIETZSCHE SPOKE

A pack

of silver wolves inside

me, battle for supplies,

lungs, mind, a heart, leaving kennels of

clean bones

IAM, I AM

I train,

see? To block mitts

that thump and thwack like clots

of ichor yet my fists be what

beat me