My love was in charge of seeing half of things
and I was in charge of seeing the other half.

Look, my car, I said.
Look, he said, the sun came up,

kissing my mouth through which I breathed,
pushing a grass trimmer

through the grass in the front of our house.
Nobody sees it,

it is at the very end of the county
in a cul de sac of coyotes and the teenagers

look for each other outside our house
and can’t find each other

in the early morning, in a language of howls
and sighs that they speak fluently,

some of them getting away,
some of them passing out to be found at dawn

still sleeping when my love wakes up
to make coffee. Then he can see them and tell me they are there.     

Look, I reply,
a raindrop on our window.

Look, I reply,
a snowflake on our window.

Look, I reply,
wind blows through our window.

Look, I reply,
a snake is knocking at our window.

Look, I reply,
through the window, which I can see from the bed,

there is a snake and it is knocking at our window.
My love brings me coffee.

Every morning my love wore a lion mask,
my love sunned on the patio.

__

"At The End Of The County In A Cul De Sac Breakfast" comes from a series of 35 Breakfast Poems, a collection that considers breakfast as a loose but loaded signal of false, attempted, potential and desired starts.