In January, a poem made from a list of words, an exercise

“progress is a comfortable disease” –e.e. cummings

good morning

imagine sweetness

a quick kisser

salted representability

a molecule of ocean

where blue, white, or

a prism

speckled mist

birds know the difference

those not extinct, that is

verbena swells

against grey feelings

a coffin, unannounced

teeth don’t decompose at the same

rate, squirrels thick for winter

layered over time

while species burn

progress, eating garbage like gulls

or gw bush, strumming a guitar and

painting, hobbies of mass destruction

ignorant bystanders still longing

for quaint catastrophes

who will save us

swallowing water

obedient descendants of this

evolutionary

detour