Dear Diary

I am waiting for a goat to chew carnations
at my window. A million stars go dark 

in walls like men I have kissed at the right
time for the wrong reasons. But this is not 

about numbers or how my steps sink
in a quicksand of longing. This is about

weird word pairings—lichen and fang—
soaring like wrens for erasure in Heaven. 

I return, indent, and try to name
ten living painters whose palettes run 

the gamut of blues. Zebra, rucksack, valley,
fingers. Where is my hymnal, my bellweather 

song? Bleating, you arrive like flowers.

[from The Burning Door, Tiger Bark Press, 2014]