33/365 - 45/365 || Twelve Nighttime Tanka

Front of the courthouse,
making his proclamations
as Martin Luther,
a grackle shouted his speech
to anyone who would listen.
•
Spent the day writing
out short poems to anyone—
while you slept turning
over in the fresh halfdark—
murmuring broken phrases.
•
The cat roams dark rooms,
with you beside me breathing
in the night softly—
unaware I lie awake
staring down at blank pages.
•
Looking for a poem
reveals a full absence tonight,
an incompleteness,
a richness of nothingness—
as whispers on a dirt path.
•
Persistent image:
the moon rises yet again
in one of my poems
before the full night descends,
holds me closely in his hands.
•
From across the room,
the Virgin and Child stare down
from the boundaries
of the wall: nonjudgmental,
yet locked in observation.
•
Late night ritual:
the cat argues his feelings
from the bedroom floor,
then jumps onto the mattress,
only to leave one more time.
•
An unfinished poem
waits nearby on the nightstand,
folding itself up
rocking in the window’s draft,
with a resolved impatience.
•
Four days pass without
murmurs of passing tankas.
Their presence evades
the house skillfully— even
my papers burn with absence.
•
From the crib he calls—
a litany of new sounds,
each small syllable
from his mouth fractures language—
words change into paper moths.
•
Left unattended,
the crack in the window grows,
splits out a new path,
creates a hole large enough
for the full moon to slip through—
•
The bones of the house
settle down in the middle
of this persistent
drought— the lingering dry winds
callout ghosts from all corners.