After Rebecca Dygert's 'First Dance'

Dresses are shimmering,

Fish under bright lights
Swimming to music, again
A daughter's tender grasp
Swept up in her father's -
His wrinkled hand, still fresh
Beholding the bride,
Dancing away memories

Rebuild

A Grecian titan summoning kryos
Over a sleepy Midwest town
In the deep snowfall
Footfalls ripping paper
To the caved in schoolhouse.

Later-

Ice weighing down yellowed grass.
Sketches of frost.
Numb and brittle ground,
Cracked from necessity
To rebuild.

Framed

Reflections on the Gilcrease Museum of Western Art

Frame upon frame of oils and dust collect
Portraits of the Cherokee in headdress
Plains of trembling horses stamping thunder
Whistle of a gun over the shoulder
God in the wilderness, the barbaric,
The cherry blossoms and dances for rain
Chained to brushes to behold the savage
Terrain at arm's length, marvel at the past

America is wetlands and warpaint
Beads catching dreams over the waterfalls
Of imagination and all regret
Within the lands of opportunity
The artist's frame makes an elegant cage -
Pipelines and reservations break untamed

Unfinished

I pencil a pithy phrase to my palm
To burn it in my skin for none to hear
Keep it strapped like the bosom and the bomb
Internal wind whispering - escribir