The past can only be rewound so much. A long pause ruins memory, slivers of fact lost in static. 

Listen, babe, I’m no prude.  But lately
all my dreams have been PG-13,
no striving towards a climax

I was huge in Venice.
They packed the concert hall and waited
until my intermissions to use the bathroom.
They slipped my songs into the Vespers!

I imagine it begins like this: Thousands
of red-winged blackbirds drop like hail
from the sky, their glossy bodies tumbling
from the black night, a flash of scarlet,
a beak, a claw.

2.
Lisa at her father’s bedside:
“Lisa, what are you doing here? I’m not that sick.”
“Dad, you have stomach cancer.”
“Oh.”

It would be so nice, you say,

if something made sense

for a change. If your body

wasn’t the bright-iced cake

that Mad Hatters swallow whole.

A lost mitten in a snow bank barely visible from the sidewalk
The crunch of ice under snow boots from Canadian Tire
Light from a single car’s headlights bounces off untouched snow banks
Sparkling momentarily before returning to the dull blue-white
Only late winter’s night can produce
Smell of the crisp, cold air takes over the senses
As the sins of the day hide in shadows and starlight and silence
Trees hold up their ghostly limbs, barren but for their white piping
Saving them from the embarrassment of naked extremities,
A procession of otherworldly sentinels guarding houses from prying eyes

I am not a poet, I am a painter.
Why? I think I would rather be
a poet, but I am not. Well,

After the New Year
The crystal earths descent
Over heads at Times Square
And Sydney.