We sat beneath the giant baobab, dreaming of African ash.

Fraximus was sacred to the Norse. Now a constant rectitude is the live fruit of a she-oak.

The belly-burns made me think I’d once been a horse.

That’s one reason I always wear either black or brown—they protect me from the urge of your spur.

Lemon coconut cake is a way of planting soybean breathing into the chest of a crow, here across the great ocean?

One plus one plus one equals nothing, or a steadfast dissolving of salt?

I discovered I had a blister after nearly sixty years and hope it doesn’t disappear.

It’s weird to see my childhood fears reflected, now, in its gravelly, riverbed stance.

Was Kabir ever colloquial? Was Rumi? Hafiz?

When either heard the clock strike thirteen did they crow-talk? Rewind their words? Did they suddenly want to die?