stillness
tight up daisy morning and the clocks are all wrong
but by evening we are out wandering with dogs and kids
cinched in light coats foot by foot up the hill
blank faced with no explanation why we still walk
clouds or stars or sun or moon or satellites buzz
we are over under daffodils and rhododendrons
pizza and barbeque drifting the streets like animals
bark touched to test the real day with rough receipts
at the thick maple to ask birth and rebirth so what
the importance of vague war explanations landing
with solutions analogies visual representations
our morning cup waking recommended without detail
then steady to the store before an afternoon shower
filling a neighbor’s food and water dish to pet the cat
Michael Rerick lives and teaches in Portland, OR. Work recently appears or is forthcoming at Action, Spectacle, BlazeVOX, Brief Wilderness, Cola Literary Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, Indefinite Space, Marsh Hawk Review, The Main Street Mag, The Headlight Review, The New Absurdist, and Word For/Word. He is also the author of In Ways Impossible to Fold, morefrom, The Kingdom of Blizzards, The Switch Yards, and X-Ray.