unfinished

with its commitments
living stump

April wood turtle

seeking shade
within

the angel of history’s
prosthetic wings

in January
only crows crow

even the old motel
is younger than me

all its alternative routes
marked X

the cattails shape-shift
into clouds

admiring a pheasant’s
dismembered foot

none is more tragic than that between a compulsive blurter and an obsessive brooder.

its only other crop
besides lichen

shoes dangle by their laces where we used to climb

pods twist in the spaces between the thorns