I Love You a Million

When I miss you
I trace your messages back,

especially the last ones,
uncorked bottles

polished clean by the river
of your love.

Only a few
plucked from the water

among scores
bobbing out to sea.

We knew it was big,
we inheritors, we lucky ones,

but for all it contained
how big was your heart?

The Next World

"Every morning the world is created."- Mary Oliver
"Yes but by whom? Who let me start over one more time?"- John C. Morrison

I think about it
every night,

staring at the stairwell
lit in the facing building,

who is next,
what is the next world

to which
I'll say good-bye.

It's luck,
the inhale of day,

exhale of stars,
a roulette wheel

whirling
as we sleep.

Here's the secret:
it's not only

in the morning
the world is created,

not only at night
that it's taken away.

Don't call it God,
this purr

of a gun barrel
spinning.

Some wake
to silent children,

a cracked
foundation.

Some look up
to see a hole

where the sun
shines through,

burning a ring
on the old oak floor.