Once I lived on the edge of a calm cove, tethered and sheltered. Ducks fed there; gulls cried offshore at dawn. I’m all asea, no oar or compass, a skiff adrift in muddy water, nothing to see or touch in a world shallow and deadly.

As a sidewalk artist I would draw a good-enough apple four or five feet across, filling the walkway, and I add a stem and one leaf, color the stem true brown. The leaf, because it’s art, is blue, the fruit pale green with a red blush on the shoulder. Pedestrians skirt the apple. A hairy…

In the botanic garden one Mallard sculls among the Monet lilies and imported Victorian platters, water dyed black for contrast. Plants sorted, labeled–bonsai here, Italian herbs there, a botany buffet, bite of desert cacti, taste of yellow chrysanthemums same color as the yellow fire hydrant. A tea house, one red squirrel, some bees, a dozen…

That smooth oval body, compact, / plumage dark, dappled, seamless, / talons gripping the backyard fence, / scimitar head a slow swivel / searching for mice in leaf duff. // Imagine those hollow bones / that make flight easy, light. / Hawk waits, patience its profession. Then / lifts off, that grand transformation–/ a winged…

Prefab, bought on spec, an anthology too heavy, too thick, these words dribble onto the page, small sense in leftover language. And trees died for this paper splattered with ready-made lines languishing like dry toast served on a plastic plate. And I sit on my high bench, gavel in hand, sentencing this thievery to public…