Night
Porchlight
It was a fine, chill night rain
of dark drops that fell almost unnoticed until they landed with tiptoes
to shiver silver and soft in the porchlight, tiny beads like a mote's tears
that reflected, each one, the broad night
and the small, warm point of yellow light on their delicate round mirror faces
— 1990
Shades of Grey
Okay, all right — so I'd rather
amble slowly under the murky sky and stark black-green
branched and leafy silhouettes
and spend my attention on how the big, just-risen almost-full moon's
not-quite-white
grey
not-quite-round
oblong
muted brilliance turns the murk a dark misty shade of grey
ever
so
silently
showing me peace
and how to just do my job without fussing about myself
than stay inside, in the decorum and clamor
of business being conducted and souls blind to the moon rushing around
— 1989
Not much
I was feeling like not much at all,
except maybe a lifeless rock lying hot in the desert sun, or maybe the
thin grey watery oatmeal
that goes neglected at the edge of the pot
— I was feeling like not much at all,
except not good,
because the few stars showed wan and flat on the pallid sky
through the smog and lit night of the city,
because Orion's scabbard and the Pleiades
did not shine like glittering double handfuls of jewels
on fire in all the blackness,
but rather were much like
only two or three drops of watery milk
on a tacky and worn, pale plastic blue tablecloth
— 1989
