On one of the shortest days of the year,

fuel
a savory pastry (goat cheese & figs)
two porcelain mugs of coffee beside an old blue stove
and travel plans for March of twenty-twelve

found
not the scarf
not the one brown glove (god dammit)
the photographic nose for street level Manhattan
a doll-sized shopping bag on the partitioned wood of the subway station

forgiven
the six months in between (immediately)
8th Avenue for calling itself Hudson
the scrape of winter through hand-me-down stockings

formative
the sung August revival on a rooftop
the making of the song itself (on central grass, of course at night)

filibustered
no cabs on 14th and All I want
is one Yuletide Bullet is that so much to ask!

formalism
Edward Hopper painted Paris & some humans
though he was awkward with his French & missed America
and it not the patrons of the small café that had the grace
it was the trees

fortune
is like Formica
and we call it
passé

finally
In the middle of the night Sam awoke
to find us faced in to each other, almost
fetal, like two seahorses defending
their tiniest of spines & snouts from the current
of a larger fish’s tail: four hands clasped
together as if holding to the railing of a ship
whose lower decks are full and we
(above & not protected from the sea)
must bare the spit & throttle of the hours
until dawn. And in retaliation we spit ourselves
back at the black & grip until our knuckles
denounce blood though the swill of Sunday’s face
is fast to call us shameful, call us rash.