Asthenia

When the orcas come, the narwhal

conserves energy and hides patiently

beneath sea ice.

Without natural predators, condors

fake fatigue. Look up and write down

the definition for stamina.

[RK, 130/21]

The Condor in Autumn

The weak rising thermal.
The hovering silence.
Even falling leaves make no sound.

[RK, 1/29/21]


The Condor in Spring

Fluctuating temperatures sharpen
and temper the appetite.

One is tempted to soar effortlessly
for days at a time.

[RK, 1/29/21]


The Condor in Summer

Guanaco and pudú carcasses
warm and ripen under the sun.

Life is tepid and crisscrossed
with yearning.

[RK, 1/29/21]

In Sight

Not the answer itself,

but the mist that softens 

its edges so you don’t 

trip along the way.

[LSS, 1/28/21]

Last Ferry

Don’t be surprised 

to see the ocean 

carrying on 

in your absence.

It learned from you 

the endless love 

of labor, never finishing 

what it began.

[LSS, 1/28/21]

The Dilemma of Fig #5

If I pluck 

all the numbers

from your lead 

brow, what will

remain of your 

face?

[LSS, 1/28/21]

Breathwork

One palm up. 

Steam rising.

One palm down. 

Rain falling.

One palm down, 

one palm up.

One palm up, 

one palm down.

The dance continues, 

slow motion,

no camera, no music,

only breath and air,

only one palm up,

one palm down, 

one palm down,

one palm up,

rising and falling

rising and falling

rising and falling,

no end.

[LSS, 1/28/21]

An Explanation of Why Returning is Difficult

Don’t you miss creating 
the sunrises and the eclipses?
I copied them with paint and ink,
swiped carpel-tunnel wrists
in remembrance.
Don’t you miss tattooing 
your own skin? 
The awkward rose tattoo is faded and
I recall old sailors I have seen in
in a retirement home, when I was yet new.

What could you possibly 
be doing right now? 
That galaxy-wide spiral of life
tightens like the spring on a
wind-up toy.
I can only imagine.

Maybe it takes that long 
to bleach away the old 
designs, the symbols that 
no longer pertain,
to erase the transcripts  
of mountains of mistakes.
I threw away the etchings,
acrylics, oils, sculptures and
kept the catalog photographs.
They comfort me.
Soon I will discard the memories.
I’ve learned that emptiness
is my favorite starting point.
Hoarding feels foolish.

Whatever your story, 
I am waiting.  
It unravels moment to moment.
With the patience of blades of grass
the temerity has dissipated.

[LSS/RK, 1/27/21]

Sleepwalker

A bird head peers out 

the top of the chimney.

The house slowly rises 

from its foundation 

and tiptoes a few steps 

closer to spring.

Windows sigh, shingles flap,

and the house settles back

into the dust and down

of its old disguise.

When you wake up,  

everything appears as 

it did the night before. 

Everything is different.

[LSS, 1/27/21]

The Creator Fails to Return from Sabbatical

Don’t you miss creating 

the sunrises and the eclipses?

Don’t you miss tattooing 

your own skin? 

What could you possibly 

be doing right now? 

I can only imagine.

Maybe it takes that long 

to bleach away the old 

designs, the symbols that 

no longer pertain,

to erase the transcripts  

of mountains of mistakes.

Whatever your story, 

I am waiting.  

[LSS, 1/27/21]

 

The Gateless Gate

My steel needle scratched copperplate
lunar and solar eclipses.

Your hand brushed revolutions
that returned to their beginnings.

The ensō is empty.
The ensō is full. 

[RK, 1/27/21]

Baba Yaga and the Maiden

Baba Yaga slick with witch’s butter,
cavorting in her hut on fowl’s legs.

Maiden taunts her with memories,
gives up on the flying mortar.

Baba Yaga measures the winter,
converts the unfaithful.

Maiden produces shears,
she's hardwired not to blush.

[RK, 1/26/21]

Empty Stalls

Winter’s last workhorse 

fallen in the melting snow, 

nostrils flaring, willing 

itself not to exhale yet 

another winter poem.

[LSS, 1/26/21]

Witch’s Butter

It’s that bright orange 

festoon of caviar 

growing ever larger

on the rotting trunk

until you stuff 

the whole of it

into your mouth

and finally feel 

the urge to stop 

talking about winter.

[LSS, 1/25/21] 

The Photogenic Fungus

palest orange clump
perched on a Blue Ridge trail
passing, everyone
presses for a photograph

do you know me?
am I edible? poisonous?
can you imagine me in a
planter in your window every morning?

you would grow tired of me
the way you grew tired of
slime molds, mushrooms, lichens,
saprophytes, puffballs, spores

dried to hard buttons
destined for soup, stew,
or the compost pile
my home away from home

[RK, 1/25/21]

Rift 3

doors open
flowers open
dams open

openings cause divisions
where singularities lived
never anticipating the gaps

this observation is replete
with archetypal examples
I never anticipated the gaps

[RK, 1/25/21]

You Can Use This Ink

You can use this ink to
ace the test you never anticipated.

Squeeze that paper in a clothes mangle
and catch the falling drops.

Recycled, you can use this ink
for this tangle of shared graffiti.

Scrape the bricks clean and
catch the falling drops.

Reused, you can use this ink
for your asemic invitations.

[RK, 1/25/21]

The Condor in Winter

Scavengers wrap around the carcass
of a Patagonian Sea Lion.

Andean gulls form an aerial pinwheel
impatiently waiting.

The Humboldt current creates
smooth, parallel lines.

A single black smear detaches,
rises, surveys its domain.

The Pacific, evenly undulating.
This world, reduced to silence.

[RK, 1/24/21]

The Bed in Winter

The cloistered cell
and winter chill.

The primeval forest
held in thrall.

Harsh ravens melt
the months old snow.

The sheets and quilts,
your pinafore.

[RK, 1/24/21]

In Season

It’s called wintering

this living in the spaces 

between breaths 

between glances 

between lovers 

with backs turned toward 

the center of the bed.

[LSS, 1/24/21]

Rift 1

the gap between what I wrote
and what I said

the crack between arguments
and reconciliation

the chasm between yesterday
and tomorrow’s possibilities

the fracture between what I said
and what you heard

the split between wanting
and doing

[RK, 1/24/2021]

Rift 2

A stereotypical suspension bridge swings in the wind.
Missing planks, frayed cables, and disclaimers—
We Are Not Responsible & etc. & etc.

Below, plastic skeletons sway in the river.
The shell of a mobile library bus hosts
rodents and spiders who cannot read.

Above, the sky shifts. Iridescent black,
ghost gray, chalk, and ash.
Condors show the way.

[RK, 1/24/21]

Lost Charm

Sewer lines and subway tunnels,

a matrix of sidewalks, streets, and alleys,

museum corridors and high-rise hallways,

spiral stairways and ladders requiring 

passwords, codes, or keys, none of which 

can be found by the blind pig dangling 

from that chain on your wrist.

[LSS, 1/23/21]

Winter Quarters

The antique Persian rug 

with perfectly-resolved corners 

that lock her mind in place. 

The frieze of Greek keys 

just out of reach above her,  

jangling when anyone 

walks past her door.

Hummingbird nectar frozen 

in the feeder, the sun quarantined 

behind the clouds.

[LSS, 1/23/21]

Nine Years

The sail was raised, the boat was launched.

I was seduced by the journey, and

forgot the destination.

[RK, 1/23/2021]

A Razor’s Edge

fear of tunnels
fear of light
fear of pleasure
fear at first sight

fear of numbers
fear of wonder
fear of shame
fear in each blunder

[RK, 1/22/2021]


Eggshell

A shingle of rounded rocks
pocketed, plucked, placed just so
on a window ledge.

Past the window apple trees
run wild, remnants of
prehistoric orchards.

This granular stone, stolen
from an unseen
continental shelf.

This mealy apple, picked
pared, baked into a
bedrock pie.

Shorebirds distain geology,
rows of trees, surfers,
tractors, and windows.

This eggshell, complete.

[RK, 1/22/2021]

Anachronism

I found your lost puzzle piece 

hanging from the chatelaine

of that Victorian woman you 

once admired in a painting.

[LSS, 1/22/21]

Walking Meditation

Words turn faster than needled edges

and take you farther down the road. 

[LSS, 1/21/21]

Change of Domicile

I’ve run out of thorns 

to appliqué to my fingertips,

but since my hands 

are already detached 

from their original function, 

I can raise them 

to the sky and sing.

[LSS, 1/21/21]

Corner Table at the Trucker’s Cafe

You can make your own lampblack

using this cheap candle, this spoon, 

and this bottle of vodka.

You can use this ink to write 

your order on your sleeve 

so you don’t have to talk 

to the waiter.

You can use this ink to construct 

any number of possible endings 

to all those conversations 

from which you walked away.

You can use this ink to reverse 

the star charts on your eyelids 

so you can read them 

in the rearview mirror.

You can use this ink to sign 

the check for the babysitter, 

who has been waiting all year 

for you to return home.

Or you can use this ink to draw 

a map on your windshield 

before heading back 

out into the rain.

[LSS, 1/20/21]

Drawing with Scissors

I can make those shadows 

on the wall.

I can make those shadows 

disappear.

I can make those shadows 

real as paper dolls.

[LSS, 1/20/21]

Training Session

Our morning run, the cargo plane

coming in at 6:10 a.m., heading 

west and down for landing, 

while we are rising 

east and up and out

to meet the competition.  

[LSS, 1/19/21]

Escape

you leave your carefully honed language
with the teenage babysitter who gets
straight As and never touches a drop

unfortunately you hear her giggling
in the back row of the theater
during the coming attractions

[RK, 1/19/2021]

Things That Collect in the Furrow Between Your Brows

Cat dander, mite 

feces, and your own 

sloughed skin.

Dust remembering 

its own first gaze 

into the mirror.

[LSS, 1/18/21]

Marie Antionette

On your birthday an explorer gives you
the first of many narwhal tusks.
He tells you it is a unicorn horn.
You are pleasantly deceived.

With salt crystal needle and seaweed thread
you stitch yourself into a summer frock.
You gather yourself together and
ignore the Pacific chills.

Now it is close enough you can see
how it spirals in a counter-clockwise direction,
taps Morse code on the hull
beneath your splayed toes.

You sit in the bow and imagine
what lies ahead.
Splashing water melts your stitches.
What holds you together?

[RK, 1/18/2021]

Figure Skating

Your skin prickles deliciously in the cold air.
You cut infinity symbols in the ice
until it cracks. You are prepared.

The symbolic lily, botany of the dead.
Allow it to metamorphosize into
a fresh lotus blossom. Indulge.

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Wings Flapping to Hold the Boat Afloat

Another minute of light 

push pinned to the sky 

this morning.

Another bluebird drawn

to the mast of your 

sinking boat.

[LSS, 1/18/21]

Uninvited Guests Appear in Her Pouf

Marie Antionette shows up as a narwhal

with our boat impaled on her tusk.

Here we are now, dripping seaweed and salt

all over the ballroom floor.

[LSS, 1/18/21]

Figure Skating

The river cracked 

beneath me so 

I carved these water lilies 

where I landed 

in the frozen mud. 

[LSS, 1/18/21]

Variations On A Wave

Tsunami #1

soundless wave rushing
abstruse
abstraction in your ears

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #2

the river’s ice
shatters
are you listening?

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #3

the cup froze
you cannot stand
crackling sounds

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #4

you set the cup down
at the garden’s edge
forgotten

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #5

weeding belladonna
you find
what was forgotten

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #6

nightshade’s beauty
supersedes
decades of caution

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Tsunami #7

this moment, gone
you wait for
calliope music

[RK, 1/17/2021]

First Cut

the gentle narwhal swims upside down
communicates in an atypical cetacean language

everything is fine, natural, and organic
until the day that tusk puts a hole in the hull

[RK, 1/17/2021]

When It Opens

slivers of light tantalize weathered prairie
                                                        outbuildings
parted clouds stream across the peaks
                                                        aspens
lit and yellowwhiteblue all around
                                                        it gets in
and then the naming of the shadows
                                                        begins

[RK, 1/17/2021]

Fit

I am
able to stay put
like daredevil dogs
able to take credit
with weight attached
able to navigate
the intercoastal waterway
able to fit, but only
like a specific puzzle piece

[RK, 1/17/2021]

First Cup

Only this steam rising from this surface,

only these porcelain walls, 

only this brief moment of knowing 

there is no other cup.

[LSS, 1/16/21]

Exorcism

Stopping your ears

by pressing,

stopping your gut

by contracting,

entering the sound

of the tsunami.

[LSS, 1/16/21]