Rings and Keys in Ste Genevieve

Rental house done
in typewriter theme
boxed wine in the fridge
fuzzy comet up high

Typewriter ribbon
run dry
ink disappearing
into dust
lost as a sinking
creek

Baseball delayed by disease
five planets visible
all-numeric password
my wife and I
driving in the dark
in a very old town
that neither of us knew
to get our eyes on a comet
no one knew would be there

Corona is
a brand of typewriter
of beer
of pruning tool
a constellation Borealis
a fancy word for halo:

That ring we saw during the solar eclipse
that pearly glow

A gaseous envelope
burning hotter
than the Sun itself

Trip to See My Siblings, Sept-Oct 2019

Game via radio, Chicago feed. Pat Hughes, Ron Coomer, Zach Zaidman. The Cubs take the lead on an Ian Happ double. The regular season is almost over. Can you believe it? Like a wink. Wild pitch, Cubs add a run, it's 3-1.

We say it every year, and not just about baseball, but: where did the season go? Where did the time go? The months like water, like sand, like air. A temperature that will change and what can you do about it? No, nada.

As we drove north-northeast from Springfield today the skies were mixed. To the west, dark skies. Confused, malformed clouds. A blue darkness. We were along the flatness of Illinois. The sky extended as far as we could see in any direction...


North, to Chicago, go on...