Here’s the worst thing I’ve learned. My brain ripped alongside my aphasia / and, thereafter, nothing “remembered” my language. / I have a different brain now, / but all told, I’m just “new” again. / I’m close to what I write and read. / What I see is clearing the path / to my workroom door.

Like tiny daredevils / The acorns leap from high up In the large oak tree / And land with a clunk or a small thud / In yards and gardens / On streets and sidewalks / On rooftops and parked cars / And occasionally on the noggins / Of neighborhood strollers.

It’s eleven p.m as we pause, our video-call for a rest, / the power will be severed in your place / for about an hour – a ritual these days you say / for the people of your village to walk on their terrace / counting the stars and acknowledging the changing climate.

Mellow marrow, good morrow. Calm before / the cytokine storm. Blood-red, a sparrow, / fixed to its bone-hollow tree, singing / of tomorrow in his hawk-ravaged nest. / But his song, I think, is not for me.

The starkly inked numbers / are now but delusions / the solid footholds / that once spoke of truth / now receive blankets / of paint or plaster / to cover the demons, / and sand is the grit / that instead fills the ears / to keep a steady course.

When my youngest daughter / cut her arms into fleshy ribbons, / I watched her damp teeth move, / her mouth a cave echoing / every motherly failure / every single tenderness / left on the table to rot