3

Partly Due

to seven seasons since the satanic ritual
we called changing-my-life

to timing—as with automobiles, air travel,
fertility, comedy, marketing and yes, love.

yes, Love, partly due to the dew itself clinging
like a real diamond on a blade of grass;

partly due to all the cubic zirconias, bad flashy
rhinestones, paste sparkles and cloudy stones.

Partly due to death--its morning breath reeking
up the new day. Ask anyone: things die

you will and so will I, we are partly-due
for bliss in some fashion. Partly due to war

that nonstop party, partly due to the diminishing
honeybees, the vanishing gorillas, the faces so human

one can read the elegies inside their dark, wet eyes,
the requiems they compose across their own brows.

partly due to somewhere, in some language,
taking hold and letting go must be one in the same

partly due to a newfound fluency and passport
in need of renewal, a globe spun like a girl

whirling her frothy dress around just before
a dance, a thrill in wherever she’s going next.