What’s all the hoopla?
Appaloosas and strawberry roans
roam in beauty while
water vixens transform
but live only in the Puget Sound.
The country glistens
but the city groans.
I’d rather ‘mire the streets
if I’m to be alone.
Cars and planes resound
while the creeks and ‘taries
grow
and the grass feeds
ants for my pants
while concrete mirrors stone,
like men mirror wolves
for young women in college bars
and the drunks mirror fishes
and wish they could atone
for a life lived in ditches
with stitches on their hands
and in their clothes.
Give me the glow;
not of the moon,
but of the strobe.

(From July 2018)