Author: Reagan Wilson

among in april generative decline
whalefall a sporing a front becomes a storm
relearn a scallop stitch make it to the post 
office make it to dusk golden sun echoing
off skyscrapers cars forced to clog the city
more glare than economy a togetherness 
of absence it hasn’t really been nice being alive
but it has been so those pink heart graffiti guys
those fucking poppies that observatory glow
beautiful  

{oh everyone! thanks for being a togetherness i was such a poor citizen of! i love you & i am glad we are a community. i want to do more right by you!!!}

when it turned out love wasn’t love a surrender
of foretell the future will come with whatever it bears
cups or fire cancer or night blooming jasmine
it comes knees hyperextended lips chapped lonesome

the era of have fun finally desiccated ground teeth distinct
from laughter which continues glacial melt to mouth
the city kinetic green for a while poppies along
the freeway prodigal radishes crescent moon dew

home again vulnerable band of shaved

forewrist urgent thirst a settle in-ness

for the now Yolanda at the gate says 

i was so worried  about you & im so depressed 

her silver hair oceanic around her radiant

whole life the generosity of seeing 

like folded strata at the shoreline of  time

generosity of thy neighbor so literal 

when bereft she buys cigarettes two at a time 

around  the corner & believes in miracles 

the highway acts as a funnel for the sky

dead koi dead squirrel dead lizard

somedays are floral some days mortal

blue throat exposed to the night

a caprice of stars lattice points

nobody alive has met this map

in the you have our sympathy room

deluge before deluge after ambiguity

pee vigilance pee panic pee subdue

devote generative as bone not yet

more tromp under the transient sky quality

of life quality of life quality of life quality of

april enters with eternity in the rain
lurches out with mortality & requests
for prepayment a final storm
collecting across the highway overripe
roses blustering in the courtyard
years from now the droplets of blood
at the doorway will fainten into concrete
murmurs the statue lost its charm
she doesn’t care while the neighborhood
bogainvillea erupts smothers fences
jewel toned tenacity nobody can promise
time just convey the cost of maybe
the city holds the city’s currency invasive
palms up against the dying day’s fuchsia
the dying day’s indigo fade

scrolling back through photos
when did his tail stop curling 
how could it be missed
a devastation of notice 
a devastation of solitude
in August a bliss blur
on the beach the day after
a dear friend’s death 
tail extended long with joy 
verve the nerve of time to be 
composed of roads debt panic
the needs of too many
money a pile of unwashed grief 
scooping loss up into
a castle of wet sand the friend 
did not die the wanted way 
not the worst not the best 
shielded her husband from
hospital noise from her 
naked leg being disengaged 
from measure gave him a 
hallway & paperwork fortunate 
when did his tail stop curling 
some after & into the next
a hurt of belated notice
not enough to have walked
around the suburbs sniffing
coyote piss dodging skunks
in the oceanic dark
not enough fortitude 
for any of this actually 
yet every day keeps asking for it 

weird wanting the whole time
to be a writer being so bad at
plot once a bowl shatters it can only
become a different bowl you can use gold
to learn the lesson appropriated or maybe
bestowed & then misunderstood plot
seems to require an order that now
feels completely unreliable maybe
some lives get plot & others

nope

some other thing

this thing

trying to think this then that then
that then that but it’s yarn left
to its own devices in the bottom
of a tote bag it’s a shoreline wracked
those words returned to again
& again crutch talisman habit even
extraordinary people are people they
might not even be kind mostly trying
for kind right now decent honest
meeting the moment though the moment
surges a tidal wave building since long
before any of us were born is the wave
a plot cause & effect causes & effects
accumulation another fixation word
cycling around like a tack embedded
in a tire a plurality of tacks until
no more tires the dog is fine right
now asleep in his new favorite corner
paws twitching in sweet chase if time
is simultaneous then it’s plot that’s got it
all wrong it’s not a smart thought just
the one that comes next a whole life
lived within a few hours of an ocean a whole
life & only this loving granularity all the
impossible details a tortoise neighbor’s
striated shell her overlapping neck
skin the specificity of an arborist rushing
up to sniff what he hopes will be
a champion tree & then it is entered
into the database for anyone to see 

less blood worse shit
calculus of care quality
until everyday is made
of bad news a barbed
wire garden the decade
scattered friends the way
a child pulls the heads
off dandelions bitterness
a desire line untrod long
way leads to the same
hopefully when we end
we convene in a soil
of recognition oh hello