Some Notes in the Margin

... a life

Of margins, white of the apple, white of the eye,

No matter how long you hold your hands out.

Charles Wright

Nothing

Binds you to this morning more

Than the tendrils of steam -

clockwise twist,

A vapor trace of leaf and stem-

winding

From the coffee pot's stub spout.

The sun, too weak to cure,

rimes

The crowns of the alders,

drawing

To them flocks of gold-capped kinglets,

Who practice a swift

cursive, writing

Themselves out into and beyond

The borders of sight.

The slate wingflap of the bandtail

erases

Its own tracks, mid-air.

Crow's cry, a black scissors,

snips and snips

Each minute past noon into

So many empty strips.

Watch the moon set

her stone table

Upon the bedroom's hardwood floor.

You have left

all these spaces

Blank, waiting for someone

To scribble in them.