ROOSTER FISH

I took my lunch at a café a block away from work. We were living in Ohio then, where there were different birds like the cardinal, and there weren’t any salmon as far as I knew. They had walleyes and bluegill and raccoon perch. The weirdest one appeared on the menu one day. I asked the waitress about it. She told me it came with a side order of soup.

RHUBARB RADIO

The tulips are coming up again. They will let all the other flowers know; they will tell it on the radio. Right now their music is faint, only the cobweb of a song, like the drone you hear in the background of a supermarket, played for a vegetable audience.

wrote 4 poems today

KING in a TAXI, 1944, 1973, The FOREST of the MOON

VIENNA CUCKOO CLOCK CLEANERS

They’re located on Magnolia Street, just a block from the bus station. Open the door and right away you’re greeted by an orchestra of tick-tocking clocks, suspended from the ceiling track like clean laundry. This is where time is taken care of, steamed, pressed like musical notes into a player piano eternally unrolling.

The FARMERS' ALMANAC PREDICTS

Spring will arrive in a month. It won’t be an easy journey. We will have 3 more weeks of rain and wind, but occasional sunny days when you swear it’s just around the corner. Be patient. When it gets here you’ll know. The engine will hiss, the kids will jump off the roped stacks and already be playing when they hit the ground, trampling the daffodils.

10,000 Spring Flowers

Two ducks on the pond. They stare suspiciously. No wonder. Underwater, one of them has a foot on the safe dial, turning it to the left, to the right, listening for that last click that will open the vault buried in the mud all winter long. Inside it is a treasure. 10,000 spring flowers, frogs, and a clutch of redwing blackbirds on tall cattails. Quite a haul for two ducks from Lake Whatcom.

OHIO FAIRY TALE, part 2

Only in a story would you see a Chinese restaurant in the woods. After the Ming Palace went broke, he bought every part and moved it all out here. Jade tiled roof, pillars with dragons, round red windows, and the big neon lettered sign. It made you hungry to look at: the thought of spring rolls, wontons, hot chow mein noodles, steamed rice, and chop suey. An old man lived alone inside. No that’s not quite true, he had a slow-moving Siamese cat.