Indemnity
Mudslides aren’t covered.
Nor jewelry over fifteen-hundred dollars
unless you have a rider.
A live tree taken down by a storm
and falling through your master bedroom?
Covered. But a dead one?
Jimsonweed
Cloudless solitude of the dog days.
Sparrows vexing grasshoppers,
cicadas droning in the limbs,
and ho, a box turtle
trundling over pine needles in the shade.
Hello, I Am Not a Soldier
And yet I wear caution like a uniform
now, pulling myself into its rough sleeves
and old boots each morning
before I even think of coffee or how
Portuguese Lessons
When we retired, I told my wife if we’re going to live in a city,
I want to be in the midst of it, not stuck in a high rise on the outskirts
near a megamall.
Mountain Lake
The next day I wake up and my wife
Is coming into the hotel room
And the first thing she tells me is that she found
A secret garden, which are her actual words,
Where she sat and absorbed as much sunlight
As she could, and then the second thing
Cribbage Lessons
The summer Dad decided it was time
I learned crib, counting fifteen two,
fifteen four, I loved doing the sums
in my head, tallying up the pairs,
runs, as if life were arithmetic,
which at six it was.