Ink Plum

Blue fly shell left
On the white sill,
Were you a life,
A whole life, or

Were you an inn,
Rooms lives stayed in,
Lives that lived you
And then ate you?

At least you flew.
At glass, of course.
Here’s an inn, too,
Built to house words

Their lines pass through.
One word won’t leave.
It’s black and still
On the white sill.

Pu-Su

Gnarled oak, no use at all—
Big leaves, bent limbs, punked wood—

That you grew and still live
Is a hymn to the soil

And good luck. Or is it
Just you’re no use at all?

A Strange Place

He gave her one gold coin.

It was all that was left

Of the clothes she had pawned.

This text is a strange place,

Not quite home, but the words

May be well-worn old friends,

Not quite a dark wood, but

The sun-lit paths are strewn

With black trunks and grey ash.

The well-known and wind-blown

Facts are so mixed and snagged

On these lines like old rags

That the mind tracks by skips

And jumps, with no clear goal

But to cross the whole text

To prove it can. So, what’s left?

Can you get to the end,

With a coin still in hand?