Again, the whales arrive, enormous, curious,
breeching off the bow of the boat. At first, 
they are only a rumor, a buzz among 
the tourists, who have come all this way, 
braving sea sickness, and do not wish 
to be disappointed. Someone points 
to a spot among the grey waves like all 
the others, insists it’s a fluke, a fin, 
water and air geysering out of a blowhole. 
We lurch to the railing, tipping the ship 
a bit to the left, then return to our seats. 
It was just a breeze, not what we’d hoped. 
We wish we could meet eye to eye. 
I am sure whales feel the same about us, 
but they are too big and we are too small 
for such visitations. Maybe that’s why 
I hear them singing in my dreams, 
why they visit my poems, where I sing back.
                        

You’re my practical potato. sprawling out 
over the rocky earth. I might have sought 
a bird of paradise, lofty head standing 
high above the crowd. But you 
will nourish me long after their stalks 
have fallen, when the bright rose, 
in his pomp, has lost his petals. 
You have all the eyes I need, 
enough to sprout a garden, under 
the ground, in secret, where nobody 
but me will know. I go out there 
with my spade and hack away 
the roots, leaving a portion of 
the tuber. I couldn’t grow a weed, 
except by accident. Without you, 
I would starve.
                        

If there’s a heaven, I’m pretty sure
I’ve been there—a muddy river bank, 
deep in the summer grass, where 
dozens of butterflies, Black Swallowtails,
big as my hand, sip mud, unrolling
their fiddlehead proboscides. 
Their wings fall open, exposing 
bright lozenges of blue, red, 
and yellow, an illuminated 
manuscript I can’t quite read.  
Bees zigzag by, guiding the hive 
to certain sweetness. I parse 
the clouds, study the dark moss, 
spreading like a map, a Rorschach test 
revealing what might be meaning.