Dove-twirl in the tall grass.

                                              End-of-summer glaze next door

On the gloves and split ends of the conked magnolia tree.

Work sounds: truck back-up beep, wood tin-hammer, cicada, fire horn.

History handles our past like spoiled fruit.

Mid-morning, late-century light

                                                 calicoed under the peach trees.

Fingers us here. Fingers us here and here.

The poem is a code with no message:

The point of the mask is not the mask but the face underneath,

Absolute, incommunicado,                                                                                                   

                                       unhoused and peregrine.

Dove-twirl in the