Lacking a Ladder

She flipped over a cardboard box
so she could get closer to
that cookie jar
high on the shelf
that was always out of reach

The overturned milk crate
The little stool
The stack of phone books
Nothing got her close enough
But still she kept stretching
Her little fingers up

and here I stand
out on the balcony
in the cold
looking up at the white bowl of the moon
wishing I could have just
lifted her onto my shoulders

Overnight
the black puddles
turn white with ice,
a pale brittle skin
that crunches underfoot.

*

The wasp's wings break off
when it burrows
into the fig
from which it will not emerge

*

The blankets of our bed
forever unmade
I remember sweeping the room
one last time
before closing the door behind me

Lightheadedness

Standing with each foot on a different building,
the narrow gap beneath you three stories
of vertiginous silence.
A dog barks. The bricks shimmy.
The golden coin of the sun wobbles on a string,
a blinding pendulum swinging back and forth.
Your eyes knock in their sockets,
your arms windmill as you try to keep your balance.
A spot of shadow dances across the walls,
the sidewalk, your face, wire twists, clouds amass
so thick you can't tug them apart, denser and denser
like concrete taffy

and then you fall, leaving nothing
but a shadow where you stood
and your empty sneakers
and a picture of your half-eaten grin
scrawled across my chest
in ballpoint pen