Ode
Day, you are the color of pig iron.
You taste like tungsten.
Jackhammer down the street.
Vacuum cleaner across the hall.
Day, you are shallow
as an aluminum skillet.
Duck saunters into it
on his titanium hips, leaving
his negligible carbon-
colored footprints
in the cinder sand.
Your sun won’t peck
through it's glaucous sky egg,
your morning turns to ash.
Knife by fork. Soup spoon
by tooth filling. Back of shovel
by shale. Footsteps follow
themselves down the hall.
A door slams.
Lead pearls drop from slates.
Sparrows ping them into gutters –
tracks where dun mice run laps,
tap-dance overhead.
You begin to polish the lake.
You shine your cloud mirrors
that prop up the gun-steel skyline.
Stone geese plummet
clear through it.
Day, you gave up dull
and now you’re giving up
solid for changeable taffeta
the taste of rain water,
the colors of rock doves.