if this is a game then we have made it, unknowing,
to the final four. unlikely underdogs. spectators turned
to suspect sport. anti-athletes. out of shape beyond reason.

at season’s height we fight for a limited audience. few dancers.
fewer cheers. down by 30...

We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.

We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...

The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,

                but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.

In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...

When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.

Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).

A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).

Teens are writing love...

This century is younger than me.
It dresses itself
in an overlong coat of Enlightenment thinking
despite the disappearing winter.
It twirls the light-up fidget spinner
won from the carnival of oil economies.
In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick...