All Souls

Harvest moon.
My howling heart—

mouth a mask.
What say you?

The Sun
knows nothing.

Only night—

my voice raised in it
tall as wheat.

The maize
of your breath.

The body
betrays us—

so we run.
Still the moon

bearing babies
above us, waxes

unlike the leaves.
Burn on,

saith the trees.

*

Save yourself.

*

October, almost—

ghost moon.
Haunted heart.

No, I won’t.

The rain slows, shows
the earthworms

they were wrong—
far harder to breathe

here, above earth,

than below,
where the storms

shelter their own.

*

The heart can’t
help it—

forgets. Beats
like a bird

against the wind,
or the pane.

Slim to none.

Only its shadow scares
it away.

Strange, how hard
it is to donate—

so we wait.
Lend me your eyes.

Hatchet moon.
Late heat.

*

Execution moon.
Hanging there

helpless. Try this
on for size.

The weatherman
never goes outside.

Grief, a garment
that shrinks each

wash. Scarecrow stuffed full
of hay, newspapers

hawking yesterday.

*

Waste away.
Why not.

Like a stone.
Like a limb.

Like a lamb.
Like a rind.

Take your time.

Like a shore.
Like a sea

or its shell, itself
an ear

hearing the sea.
Like honey.

Make me.

*

Suffer the salmon.
The dolphin

& the meek.
The whale

who finds the shore
& our poor prayers.

The horse, though broke,
who can’t quit

running. Why wait.
Half of nothing

is still nothing.
What keeps

you here, baying?
Even inside-dogs circle,

tamping down grass
no one but them

can see.
Suffer

& shelter me.

*

How it hammers,
the heart.

Go, head on
without me.

For the journey,
jettison nothing.

Let autumn do that—

how it sheds
clothes like a runaway

heading steady north.

*

So cold, you cry
when the wind

meets your eyes

Here autumn’s only
winter in disguise

Sun carved
bright on the stoop

Say you’re mine.

*

Plague me,
O Lord.

Wound me
like the worm moon

cut in two.

Hurricane
& tornado me.

Let loose
your levees

& the thunder—

the sky stained
with bright.

Prove it.

*

Monk moon.

Alone in a sky
studying itself.

God’s many
guises—

dervishes, darkened
ballparks.

Artificial hearts.

*

Leave me be.

In the city along
the freeway a coyote

crawls from under
the guardrail—

crouches on hindquarters,
kneels even, like a man

tired as I am.

*

Let there
be night—

*

Out my window
a soldier in dress blues

beneath the faint
midday moon

lays a wreath
on a well-kept grave

& with what
arm he has left

salutes.

This poem appears in the November 2024 print edition.