In the morning, you get the news

your best friend has killed his wife

and you think, “Hey, that’s a thing

I might someday like to try.”

We harvest wisdom wherever we can.

In rice fields, unnerved roads accept,

like fish, that floods will wash

them away. But it’s never so easy,

is it? Floods, tornadoes, murder.

No matter how furiously we paint

onto old canvasses, something

of the abandoned work shows through.

from Feeding the Crow (Plain View Press) and The Road Home (Dalton Publishing).

For my thoughts on writing this poem, follow this link.