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The moths were the things that invaded, like a bad man’s touch.

You’re too far from where I sit to admire your finery up close.

I’d have guessed the winter this way, every bitter plum already singing.

By the kitchen sink, my aunt held a fish as if holding the Holy Body.

Lure, yes, you would know how to catch and clean such a thing.

The social-media world was ablaze with his daughter’s bagunça.

Fishing with Dad guaranteed two days of just us and made me special.

i was a wild thing down by the river, quiet like wild things are.

It is here I learn the speech of men. The speechless guilt of every swig.

Exhausted, androgynous, delirious, I delight in my many parts.

If every present
is possible, how can we have eyes to see?

I dug a hole in you; I jumped (here is the church, here is the steeple).

I lie down and see you one bed over; therefore God exists.

The stars begin to turn clockwise, freeing us of all consequences.

I'll pick a black card of luck for you: star, pinkmoon, mirror, ostrich eye.

I drag my sheets as Earth drags her tangled mess of tides.

The pupils are toothpicks. The lake is a sky with a circle beneath.

Maybe he was preparing for a disaster that would never happen.

Some night soon you’ll haul yourself out from far beneath this life.

Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

I saw the glowing body, silver with time, emerge from behind a lone pine.

A plus B; a child in peril, plus love, dissolution of, equals a story.

Suddenly two would dart and clasp one another belly to belly.

What excuse did I use to pick a fight with that arrogant poet?

They plant whispers where shouts incinerate into hisses.

I want you enough to gnash you into a silence made from pieces of silver.

Who are we? Without one another, who will we be?

Years ago I wanted parallel lives, to see how it turns out for all of me.

I’ve taken the pledge and made donations of blood to the world.

Michael McGriff