He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen. 

We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—

She barely glances at you when you chink
your spare coins in her upturned cap, but still
spreads a spell among the pavement footfalls,

      Shedding Annamakerrig It begins high up the chestnut tree with leaves on the twigs on the tips of branches where sap has slowed. Turning amber carried by the breeze they touch the earth, rest on the grass where autumn begins   Tim...

From this far-side apartment
you watch jarul leaves darkening with the seasons

Determined, you smash against the window
I have to admire you in your striped suit

The sea happens to me today

not because I’m the woman in the bakers
brusque turned rude
or the peaches              still hard in the bowl

Sunlight saunters in long, thin wires through the fallow field
of my bedroom. You approach, a migrating heron
in a runny yolk collar and suntanned shorts, a white-light emissary
of hope. . .

I’m waiting for news I don’t want to talk about
and scrolling through old photos to escape.
After some swipes, I see you walking away.