I.
Last summer I buried a body under the apple tree
and every now and then I see the ghost plucking weeds
and picking seeds from his teeth.
He spits them at my window at night.

The best place we ever lived
had a really big tree. More than five stories
shadowed the backyard.

At first they were short
and simple: moralistic fables or fairy tales

The moon is a ghost, a god.
She is a white rabbit of silver
Eyes and whiskers.
He is an ancient demon, a teething child.

In my mind a butterfly catches pneumonia:
Flap flap the world is changed.

There’s a second life but not a first,
there’s you and no there’s just me—

In the small hours, under the wolf light.
my best friend throws peanuts
at my window. It is the nymphs.
They are migrating.

dot the j and cross the seven.
upcoming in neon, in oppressive heat
we dream with night-opened windows.

The forest lands link earth with heaven,
spruce-tree tips like dendrites of elder earthen gods.