My words can capture so little
Even the roseate flakes of the orchid
Are better captured by my hand
Leaving you to guess at
The ephemeralities of mood.

Gosse believed in the circle
Of flat time like Rust Cole:
Start anywhere in history
And God fills in behind you
Like a sweeper in his jumpsuit.

Satisfying neither believers nor atheists
Indicating like a terrible actor
The dog studies his master’s finger
And the tennis ball goes uncaught—
See? We’ve dropped it again.

This poem was written in a basement
Surrounded by bikes and miscellaneous
Trash. My finger hovers over
The send key, but I doubt
That anyone’s there to receive it.

I doubt in other words this
The indefinite pronoun of my life
Tenderly planting the fossils
Of fictitious dinosaurs in your past
Following the petal’s whorl

To the likeness of water and flower.