Inside Ball Lightning

(SEMO Press, 2020)

Fermata 

You’re the spiral’s eye, sky-blue balloon let-go-of,
            blood in the water, turning
fermata, chairs stacked to the ceiling. You’re fog on
            the hand mirror, window
through the highway window. You’re the gills of a carp
            looking up at the rippling
moon, mouth open. You’re the spinning cloud in me,

            creak in each swing
on the playgrounds, space between raindrops, a ghost
            putting on clothes.
You’re the moth inside the lightbulb, fluttering,
            your shadow
morphing massive on the papered walls of this room
            a storm surrounds.

You’re a dream city
            I bike through in the dark,
my headlamp powered by pedaling. I have to keep
            moving away
to make anything, even the fences, seen.

(first published in Colorado Review)