METEORIC

came to
Calaveras
to see 

the big trees
just outside

Arnold
followed

one trunk
and struck

upon this bit
of sky

lying there
you can tell

by the way any blade
cuts it

by the way
it’s weighed

against any
same-sized rock

AUBADE

I don eyeglasses, yellow-tinted, and everywhere see citrus
I don too my raincoat, to walk through the orchards
as a gentle rain
I don a cloudy aspect, the sun only just now shining through the trees
I don’t know if it suits me, but I pin a green carnation at my breast
As I might don an underripe feeling
I don’t take off so much as layer over, often by necessity,
the rain coming down harder as I leave the house
I don that house
and the nails by which I know myself to be put together
and the upstairs window left open
and the emptiness when I am away
I don soft footprints so that I might be found overlooking
the fields farther out
I don an eye, the single black bead among the branches
resting at the breast of the one I love
heart racing like prey among the tall grass
where a bee explores my foreign flower
I don daybreak, and no rain, though I do
don drops and the world reflected there
dons a lemon in turn