I've absolved myself of quite a lot
these days
nice and drifty

feeling halfway to grifter
someone must be being swindled
or getting shortchanged
for me to feel so relaxed

or maybe the jubilee 

has come and rolled through 

from up on high

long-distance only child of a divorced father

Is there a word for
the way that my worry
wells up in the middle of my chest
and condenses itself
into a magic 8 ball

I want to shake him sometimes
when we talk on the phone
and I hear his hacking cough
I wonder if he's really

cutting back on smoking
outlook not good
walking to the rock river
cannot predict now
wearing a mask in the grocery store
my sources say no

Jan. 14 (a campfire by itself)

a campfire by itself

look at this strange boy

it’s freezing it has a house

 

oh good, the campfire

is only in the boy’s mind

the boy is only in the

 

reader’s mind, there is no boy

see how it feels, to be

 

against a figment, the smoke

unharmful to anyone except

 

a displaced and tired

skywritten note to self

settling down to the earth

 

If you go through any door

let it be

 

the door to the backyard, where

you can observe there is

no boy at a campfire by itself