contemporary objects don't exist enough
to be written about.

at night,
swarming flurries
made white below a crooning
streetlight beaming on
while most things are sleeping
don't remind me of anything
besides
swarming flurries
made white below a crooning
streetlight beaming on
while most things are sleeping

at night

i think

two people could hold hands walking up that mound —

no footprints are there. how
writing prolongs the voices echo
someplace keeps their confessions elsewhere in now
warrants the effort to write.

snow runs off through grates on the sidewalk
though some things left behind — cigarette butts, post-it notes not
crammed in pockets deeply enough, severed bird tarsus and toes —litter building bulkheads,
tuck into trunks afterwards,

though what of nouns led down the river, to the ocean,
falling behind the horizon of object permanence?

compliments and hugs cannot touch the translucent drum
of the ghost’s heart
which one must let wander on and cease to haunt
with a childish temper to be seen or heard.