Living in a tent

has really calmed me down.

That fear of darkness

is almost gone. Charles was away

for some nails right before full moon

—and I loved the nights

alone. I bathed in the water tank

by moonlight

and slept so naked.

Lately the foxes

are moving in closer. I glimpse

their faces through my fingers while

sipping tea. At dusk

the vixen hunts across our meadow.

When I whisper, she stops—

and shows her tongue. She and her mate

drink from the old water tank

where I bathe.

Michael comes out

from town on weekends. He never

gives me noise when I shake

off my dress and dance just because

there’s a moon.

At midnight on solstice

he’ll shinny whatever one glimmered oak

I step to

and steal mistletoe.

These shy little creatures

are coming so close—

They sit out in the chaparral and watch

while I’m alone in my nightgown

like I won’t know

they’re here. I don’t want to disturb them

with hammering

or have cats or dogs. They drink

from the water I bathe in.

Charles says

our cabin is nearly finished.

But I don’t want to live inside walls

any more. In the tent

I can look out at the stars, breathe

blown air. I love undressing and waiting

in the meadow tank

where my foxes

wet their naked tongues.

So lost since daybreak way up

wakened in all that oxygen,

I crashed down through wild

brush to step up on log rot

suddenly breath to breath

with an elk. I knew his heat

wafting my face, eyes widened

as mine. I could have touched

his quivering lips, that heart

pounding into my chest.

Alive with oxygen I marveled

through a span of antlers revolving

with that great head and all of me

before he stepped calmly away.

I heard him vanish into brush

and silence, then down beyond

where he had breathed, a cutbank

wavered, thus a road. He dissolved

back up into Idaho, me an hour

on down into Montana and

a long hypnotic trudging out.

sleep is the brain of a flower

sleep is your last chance to open like a parachute

sleep is a train with gold windows coming over a waterfall

sleep is that long sled ride down a snowy hill

sleep is the star at the bottom of my beer

sleep is an elephant kneeling to a child with a sparkler

sleep is the castle you were born in

sleep is in love with the butterfly of my lips

sleep is a horse nobody else can ride

sleep is the desert at night on a lunchbox pressed to our heart

sleep is the journal of God

yes

that’s what sleep is

sleep is a nun driving a tractor into a snowstorm

sleep is a stop sign in flames

sleep is a semi rolling wide open through a cathedral

sleep is the highway away from my head

sleep is glowing like any tailpipe in the stars

sleep is a loose ribbon falling from the sky

sleep is a balcony full of soldiers tossing rose petals and panties

sleep is the lost dress that floats

sleep is a blind sailor who kisses like a woman

sleep is that milk you thought you’d never get again

sleep is not ours to keep

sleep is where the wind went

sleep

what is sleep

fog in a cat’s mouth

                             popcorn on a lamb’s back

                                                                  a cloud in an elevator

sleep is a Cadillac with a hood full of doves

sleep is a watermelon kissed by a priest

                                             sleep is a hot

                                        flashlight to my heart

                                    as I swim to the cellar with

                                        my red eyes glowing