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.