22 

Playful reminiscence.
In the fall
of 2006 the Avalanche
nearly overtook me.

Innocence must be like some sort
of vacation; it wouldn’t exist if
there wasn’t something a little more bleak
on the other side.
In a parking lot, midnight,
a knife was sure to donate
harsh gravity to me.

Some 20 months later, giver or take,
the final verse of
the final track on
some relatively new vinyl
leaked from my headphones
and pulled away some veil over me.
I’d quote the words if not
for the copyright. Something
about joining a union of the obsolete,
our eventual extermination.

In the campus rose garden,
each type of plant is uniquely
labeled with a genus and species.

& above, a charcoal haze of
cumulonimbus gathering