Sums

                 "One must dare to be happy." ~ Gertrude Stein


Night = enchantment = migration

of folded-wing shadows? Night = space

between rain and tornado watch = mudslicked

forecast? A bird repeats its long syllables 

somewhere out of sight.  It says 

                                                                        it is tired

of being heartsick for days and just wants to slip

inside the moon's eclipsing. Can you understand

how even a moment of suspension softens

some of the boundedness of time? Night =

the breathing mechanism of waves = the bolus

of dead tissue lifted 

                                  clean from my mother's thigh.

Night = the ceiling above her = the pink light

she washes in on waking.  Sometimes I dream 

that night = a road cloaked in fog = me turning 

around to see I am the one pushing to move 

beyond. Night = I am sorry

                             for such thoughts = small  

maps of moss. I touch my fingers to their  

insistences, their coiled flags of green rebuke.