Let's try something new. A poem in process that first appeared here. I suddenly love the word gurgle.


The Neighbor's Dog

It is the ending that makes everything worthwhile.

The yellow bamboo leaves spike without question
less diligently. Dishes exonerate. Intentions
do not pile but spread, stave off less compelling ones.

She frequently looks up the difference between
transitive and intransitive verbs.

Metonyms have left her
stranded. Adjectives heap themselves in succession
in light of the coming holidays. Sugar tells stories

when no one's looking. Someone is always looking.
The neighbor walks the neighbor's dog.

She considers what she can throw away, what
she cannot buy, or whether carried from subject to object.

The writer has no need to ask
what makes her so. Logic is such a foe. And in the end
we all cheer for the woman who burns down the town.

No one would be prepared.