Tick Tock

Between a tick
and a tock:
calamity ducks

or it may not.

In the crack from

tick to tock
life flows on


or maybe not.

A thing to fear,
a thing to knock
on wood for:
some luck
between
the tick and tock.

But not my son,
the cocky jock.
He fears little,
he fears not
the ticking
of the clock.

Howl

After lunch I wash down the kitchen counter 

And notice the Hackberry tree outside the window

Has grown taller, its branches much lengthened.

Suddenly I think of her

Among those green buds sprouting

along the skinny outstretched limbs

that point south and north, east and west.

Which way shall I look?

The question bursts like a bubble.

It’s not not heavy. It knocks me

into the chair. My lips form a zero 

and I howl like a dog tied to a tree.