<\/p>\n

Frost Advisory<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Viscous purple light of sundown &<\/p>\n

the mountains in silhouette. Autumn delivers<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

its ultimatums, & the skeletal magnolia<\/p>\n

shivers. Every morning this month<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve filled the bird feeder & by dusk<\/p>\n

it\u2019s empty again. Scattered on the grass,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

seed husks & blood splatter; hunger<\/p>\n

already forgotten in the roughhouse wind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll sleep with my full belly in my empty bed.<\/p>\n

Second snow of the season in tonight\u2019s forecast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Morgantown<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Three sparrows on the fence, each the size of a child\u2019s fist,<\/p>\n

little hands balled in frustration, &<\/p>\n

brought to bawling eyes: when pressed<\/p>\n

against the irises the boy sees feathers of light<\/p>\n

rather than birds in Franciscan brown,<\/p>\n

the ones that fly off when a screen door rattles<\/p>\n

or a car starts up, only to settle again. So quotidian:<\/p>\n

their sacrament of crackers, scraps of morning toast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Morgantown where I lived once<\/p>\n

two cardinals nested outside our window &<\/p>\n

some mornings I\u2019d observe them bicker & build\u2013<\/p>\n

he in his Santa suit, she in muted reds.<\/p>\n

I expected little, yet expected those cardinals might be<\/p>\n

instructive in ways the Catholics had failed to be:<\/p>\n

their catechism of hunger & need.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In sixth grade I carried my naivet\u00e9e in a zipped case<\/p>\n

with three number two pencils & a pink eraser.<\/p>\n

The neighbor kids who went to public school wandered the streets<\/p>\n

with slingshots & cynicism & stalked Staten Island\u2019s<\/p>\n

small game\u2013mourning doves, squirrels, & chipmunks,<\/p>\n

the infrequent stray cat. Was I complicit in their sin<\/p>\n

for never speaking out? For setting the corpses in shoe boxes<\/p>\n

& burying them in the woods beyond the close cemetery?<\/p>\n

I wanted to be good. I prayed someone might notice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thus began the walk away from any credo,<\/p>\n

& still those cardinals remained<\/p>\n

together in the hedgerow & remain there<\/p>\n

in memory<\/p>\n

while sparrows launch themselves<\/p>\n

together & return: one constant on this smashed-bottle block<\/p>\n

with its daily newspaper delivery. No one reads poems.<\/p>\n

Or thinks of Aphrodite, particularly not the woman<\/p>\n

with the parakeets. They fly free in her home,<\/p>\n

affable fireworks of blue feathers, of yellow.<\/p>\n

She ignores the sparrows, which are homely<\/p>\n

after all, so easy to forget, here<\/p>\n

among wrought iron fences & unkempt shrubs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here kids wait for the bus as light stretches & yawns awake.<\/p>\n

One of them will be picked on. One of them<\/p>\n

will fail spelling. One will think she\u2019s fallen in love for<\/p>\n

the first time, but only for a quickening moment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Back Roads at Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rain stricken leaves. Leaf slick asphalt.<\/p>\n

The road traces the curves of a river,<\/p>\n

which I can\u2019t see & the name of which<\/p>\n

I do not recall. Like a thug<\/p>\n

night wears its darkest coat & the trees<\/p>\n

hide their faces, hunker in. Somewhere<\/p>\n

in these woods deer rut, maybe<\/p>\n

a laughing coyote sniffs the damp air.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an abandoned farmhouse, certainly,<\/p>\n

its walls sagging as if it had been weeping<\/p>\n

for decades, & perhaps there\u2019s a double wide<\/p>\n

where a young wife sleeps clutching a pillow<\/p>\n

to calm her nerves. Her husband sits<\/p>\n

in the blue light of internet porn listing<\/p>\n

all the lovers he never had. Surely<\/p>\n

there\u2019s a road cut out for the semis<\/p>\n

that deliver the wind turbines<\/p>\n

visible above the tree line in daylight.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m driving away again & no one awaits<\/p>\n

my arrival. Typical. NPR reports<\/p>\n

a teenager in solitary confinement<\/p>\n

for three years, how like a monk he became\u2013<\/p>\n

that cloister. I keep telling myself I\u2019m fortunate<\/p>\n

as the car fish-tails around another hairpin<\/p>\n

deeper into October. Miles off<\/p>\n

red warning lights along a mountain ridge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vacancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That night the storm tap-danced on the shingles<\/p>\n

in the way only rain does, &<\/p>\n

I lay on thin sheets watching a stain<\/p>\n

on the dropped ceiling morph into an image of Thomas<\/p>\n

sticking his hand into Jesus\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019d believed in miracles, then I would have called<\/p>\n

the local papers or a parish priest at least.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019d believed in love, I wouldn\u2019t have been there at all,<\/p>\n

or I would have told the woman<\/p>\n

in the motel tub twenty feet away,<\/p>\n

slightly drunk & embarrassed<\/p>\n

not by her nakedness but by mine,<\/p>\n

I would have said her name & told her about the Sistine ceiling &<\/p>\n

the way the vacancy sign glowed out the window<\/p>\n

wetly like stained glass &<\/p>\n

how I wished confessionals had such signs<\/p>\n

or better yet, ones like McDonald\u2019s telling how many had been served,<\/p>\n

how many had been saved if only briefly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or I would have told her that she\u2019s angelic<\/p>\n

in her melancholy,<\/p>\n

something I assumed she already knew.<\/p>\n

The wind played a melody I almost recognized.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t understand how two lovers in the aftershock of orgasm<\/p>\n

could feel without warning<\/p>\n

sad & almost like strangers,<\/p>\n

but there we were, our enthusiasm for each other\u2019s touch<\/p>\n

waning. A hot trickle<\/p>\n

rippled from the tap to keep the water warm,<\/p>\n

her body shuddering again, involuntarily<\/p>\n

but not from pleasure.\u00a0 A car in the parking lot splashed through<\/p>\n

a puddle. The whole night<\/p>\n

watery; the whole night a long sigh.<\/p>\n

The lamp cast its miasma of yellow light & shadow.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t befuddled when she kissed me on the lips<\/p>\n

to say goodbye<\/p>\n

for what we both knew to be the last time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What had befallen that couple who\u2019d entered that room<\/p>\n

all mouths & hands, touch & tongues,<\/p>\n

all cum & sweat & hunger?<\/p>\n

We\u2019d felt one another\u2019s wounds without pause,<\/p>\n

without awe, & kept on.<\/p>\n

There was no crying\u2013<\/p>\n

but the whole world was wet. When we parted,<\/p>\n

the veil of fog remained hours away from lifting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cloister<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nights when my spine was one vibrating wire<\/p>\n

in the frequency of hunger, I understood<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the diction of addicts, their craven dialogue of want.<\/p>\n

I worshiped desire, was a friar in that order.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I made my pilgrimages & got down<\/p>\n

on my knees; I prayed the way good Protestants pray,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

asking for gifts of the spirit<\/p>\n

& gifts for the shell that holds the spirit firm\u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

those gifts I longed for & longed to share,<\/p>\n

calling oh lord<\/em> into my darkening chamber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Frost Advisory   Viscous purple light of sundown & the mountains in silhouette. Autumn delivers   its ultimatums, & the skeletal magnolia shivers. Every morning this month   I\u2019ve filled the bird feeder & by dusk it\u2019s empty again. Scattered on the grass,   seed husks & blood splatter; hunger already forgotten in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3546"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3621,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions\/3621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}