Fourteen Beginnings in Praise of June

Because ambitious but poorly advised workers
removed the ivy that covered the fence,
we can now see as well as hear
the people who scream in the alley

*

A neighbor presses down grass clippings she’s using as mulch
carefully,
like a caress

* 

The presence of three dragonflies
signified the absence of all the other dragonflies

*

Things I have mourned like
not giving my daughter a middle name like Wren

*

What I saw—

hopping—

in the grass
was not a rabbit but a squirrel

*

The poetry teacher said no writing about spring flowers or autumn leaves,
the only subjects I wanted to claim

*

Seven pines shade
their own needles and dropped cones

*

that they are there or
so much depends upon

*

If you turn the sky into a grid, some squares are blue and white like sky is supposed to
be, but in some the clouds have black flat bottoms

*

No one treasures
ten straight hours of sleep like
the former mother of a newborn

 * 

When I took out the trash
the man holding the suitcase
smiled at me

*

The yoga teacher said put your sacred gemstones under the full moon
but I forgot, and I had no sacred gemstones

 *

All the places I’m not right now, like pre-op for heart surgery

*

Today the people who sleep in Dailey Park
wake up to the songs of a finite number of birds