July 3

In the night god comes like an omen-
Three fingers with ten knuckles each
God opens my house like a turtle’s shell
Reaches in without malice, lifts a book from
My bedside shelf, says, "Here: try again,”-

July 6th

The father piles blankets on his children
While mother makes a stack of one-priceless things –
The heirloom buddha is oak and nothing more
The piano returns to kindling
One cannot pluck along with blue fingers
Better to make shadow puppets on the wall
In the light of lost pleasures

July 11th

Look with your eyes to see the ant
To see a butterfly’s wing clamped in mandibles
Scuttering across blacktop, over sticks and leaves
Cheeto packages already picked clean
Over cigarette butts and lake stones
Look with your eyes and see the ant
Who lonely picks across pavement, carrying nothing,
Not even the weight of his birth,
Just the pressure of your gaze,
You who thinks you are so different.

August 2nd

How long does it take
To achieve enlightenment?

Teacher flattens her hand, says
“No time at all. Reach out and take it,”

A lunge-
And like a silverfish
Peace retreats into the algae

August 31st,

So what do I do? Ill tell you:
I put my hand in a vise
and take off the fingers
with a claw hammer.

Drink the leaking fluid
from an oil pan and
by nightfall?

My hand has grown back
and I have to do it all again.