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There were times when the girls knew where the man was in the orchard, and times they did not. These times they trod slowly and carefully, not that they thought he would harm them—not really—but it had become a kind of game. You might turn the corner into an orchard row and find him there, walking toward you or away, or maybe you saw his legs, his trunk, obscured in leaves.

no one wants to admit it but you just

might end up one day in the wrong

place at the wrong time and some

evil shit rains down on you

and maybe you get

crippled or blind

or plain old

dead and

not one soul will give a good goddamn

because they can soothe them-

selves with a wrung out prayer

about wrong places and

wrong times, when

even as they’re

thinking that

they know

that everywhere is the wrong place

and every hour is the wrong hour

and that bad breaks don’t seek

you out; they’re always there

waiting to swing into action

like a traitor limb you

didn’t even know

you had

Still behind him was that damn coyote. A determined critter, he was. He hadn’t caught sight of him for at least an hour, but he felt his presence out there. At first he had feared him. Now he didn’t. If circumstances were different he might have welcomed the company of a coyote on a lonely walk on a snowy night. At best, the coyote’s presence was disconcerting. He was puzzled. Why would a coyote be so determined? Poor animal. It had been such a hard winter for man and beast.

I don't trust nobody

             but the land I said

I don't mean

present company

of course

you understand the grasses

hear me too always

present the grasses

confident grasses polite

command to shhhhh

shhh listen

To miss my life in Kabul is to tongue 
pears laced with needles. I had no life
in Kabul. How, then, can I trust my mind’s long corridor,
its longing for before? I have a faint depression
polluting my heart, sings the lake. That there is music 
in everything if you tune into it
devastates me. Even trauma sounds like Traum, 
the German word for dream. 

           And the sky!

Nooned with the steadfast blue enthusiasm

Of an empty nursery.

Crooked lizards grassed in yellow shade.

The grass was lizarding,

Green and on a rampage.

Shade tenacious in the crook of a bent stem.

Noon. This noon –

Skyed, blue and full of hum, full of bloom.

The grass was lizarding