Overnight,
new toadstools
shoulder through
sodden grass
the way sorrows
emerge,
Praise Song for Adverse Noise Conditions
Praise the cicadas, the hydrangeas blown
against the bathroom window; praise
the wind-chimes, the whisper-press
of pages in my hand; the poem,
however it descends.
…But for the Grace of God
He’d played on your baseball team one year,
showed promise you never did.
You said you’d lost touch with him
until he turned up
in your English class that fall—
a different boy—withdrawn, thin,
and silent in a room where no one else was
quiet.
Caterpillar
I didn’t ask the caterpillar
with its antennae tangled
criss-cross in a cobweb
if it wanted to be healed,
