Reverse Alchemy

Forget bullion bricks

and gaudy chains around

the neck. I’m perfecting

the long tradition of turning

gold to lead. See: autumn

leaves. See: lust. See: everyone

you’ve ever loved who’s dead.

Trees Are Social Creatures

after Peter Wohlleben

They lean away from fellow trees

to share the sun and pump sugar

to stumps of long-gone friends.

Their roots interlock like fingers,

like my grandparents’ hands clasped

across their nursing home room.

When one dies, the other dies, too.

Lessons from the Pygmy Mole Cricket

It leaps from the pond’s surface,

tiny oars of spring-loaded legs

propelling it from a predator’s grasp.

Water, it knows, is surprisingly

thick, viscous. We, by contrast, feel

mostly leaden, convinced the hard

earth that holds us is thin, vicious.

Paperclip

How you began as waxed ribbon

during the late Crusades. How your

curves are called tongues as if they

have something to say. How in nervous

conversation, I pry you into a silver

snake. How, unlike me, you’ve

learned to bend, not break.

Rockwell’s Models Reunite

They were paid five bucks a pop:

the kids in PJs at Santa’s knee,

the blond girl rescued from a flood,

the trumpet-playing carrot-top. The boy

from the barbershop keeps his hair

cropped to a buzz and like the others,

yearns for a time that never was.

Hand

The hole in your palm

is an open window, the sash

thrust high in its socket.

I press a coin-sized crumb

of hope in your hand and it

disappears. Then your hand

disappears in your pocket.