From a manuscript in progress that will be published by Wesleyan University Press in 2020.

Those years when I was alive, I lived the era of the fast car.

There were silhouettes in gold and royal blue, a half-light in tire marks across a field—Times when the hollyhocks spoke.

There were weeds in a hopescape as in a painted backdrop there is also a face.

And then I found myself when the poem wanted me in pain writing this.

The sky was always there but useless—And what of the blue phlox, onstage and morphing.

Chance blossoms so quickly, it’s a wonder we recognize anything, wanting one love to walk out of the ground.

Passion comes from a difficult world—I’m sick of twilight, when the light is crushed, time unravels its string.

Along the way I discovered a voice, a sun-stroked path choked with old light, a ray already blown.

Look at the world, its veil.