This life, a long love

dance like the antigonal

crane’s, unashamed

display always haunted

by the possible

rejection, after, or not

knowing what’s after

at all. In the early fall

I buried my god, a cat

w/small yellow teeth

+ autoimmune disease

—she had a fever

weighed 2 pounds. We

say I found solace

like found a dime

—maybe it’s more

like found a school

or a trust or anything

you do with other people.

There are holy kinds

of work, I think—answers to

the question what makes you

tired and happy?, dignity

the rhyme between these

so few of us are

guaranteed. A high hill

overgrown with tall

weeds, tough climb up

to look for something fallen

among the green but

harder even to make it

back down, not tangle

& trip with all your

momentum inclining

with the earth,

towards it, two wrists

such fragile defense.

Shakespeare writes

a ton about joints

knees that bend

or don’t, anatomy

an aesthetic weapon

since way before the

Renaissance

(embalming, Galen,

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī,

Ibn al-Nafis writing

contra Galen & here

trans. Meyerhoff:

but there is no passage

between these two

cavities [right and left

ventricles]; for the substance

of the heart is solid

in this region and has

neither a visible passage,

as was thought by some

persons, nor an invisible

one which could have per

-mitted the transmission

of blood, as was

alleged by Galen.

The pores of the heart

there are closed

and its substance is thick).

It’s a neat trick, thinking

what the mower ran over

wasn’t alive. The heart is

solid in this region,

but it does not enjoy

hegemony over the head

where our nose & ears

are, and our two eyes. One

of mine is a little crooked

(lazy), the other near

-sighted, a helpful metaphor

for the poet & the speaker of the poem

together on one horizon line but not

quite in sync. Lisa Robertson

writes, Say I’m a beautiful animal

who has mastered laziness

and I feel better. I know

master is one of those words

but it just comes from an adverb

for more. The nice Witness

reading me scripture

from her iPad, And God

will wipe out

every tear from their eyes.

I forget to change

the wash and nothing happens

except some quiet rain

that wasn’t forecast.

In between tabs

of the Bible library

she had asked questions

starting Do you believe

and I wasn’t sure how

she hoped I’d answer,

dead fish

snatched up by the blue

heron I’ll be writing about

for the rest of my life, at this

rate, knows to eat

the bluegill headfirst

so the fins don’t get stuck

in their throat

little silver

rectangle a blur

on the birder’s phone.

Home rhymes with alone

when you’re not looking

Somewhere in My

Memory a bar

of soap with

four finger

-shaped dents

I had to hold another

cat today as she died

her tumor had gotten so big

it was bleeding into her eye

red gunk of morning, warm

wet paper towel compress

every day, she would tear

the skin open nightly so

it was time, little sign

in the vet’s office

SAVING ONE CAT WILL

NOT CHANGE THE WORLD,

BUT SURELY FOR THAT

ONE CAT, THE WORLD

WILL CHANGE FOREVER

getting redder

or more yellow,

snails in the Netherlands

with climate change

I’m hearing noises

soft ones and

insistent knocking

no idea the source

maybe being alone

most days

most of the day

writing math symbols

into the computer

Shakespeare writes

Fly a lot, maybe for

metrical reasons but also

a character’s greatest

dramatic power can lie

in leaving

a setting for another

this plane for the next

well enough alone

(just kidding, in Shakespeare

that never happens)

no stone unturned

I have yearned and done nothing

about it, and I have yearned

and done something, and

now I am married and

as happy as someone

with my cons

-titution

can be

Hi Kristi

thank you for being

so clear-eyed about everything

for saying I’m sorry on the stairs

for head scratches

sex so good it hurts

to imagine not having it

and looking down a half-century hallway

every day with me in it

and saying yeah, still