Nathan Hauke

Morning sun a
thumbprint

 that melts against the window 

what humidity
did you thumbprints
earn burnishing
buy  matte green leaves
and sell
it’s always  Skeleton Boy is teary
your time because I took a new job
I had to take
and I have to be away

trying to 
tell myself
it’s awake
it’s alright

it is
it’s not
always

I had integrity 
how do I
I had visions relinquish
a voice
we couldn’t afford gas or groceries  that says

the car I was driving  that’s life
fuck
almost fell apart on the freeway off
take
your
medicine
that’s
life
you
sell out

of 
course

I 
cattails 
sleeves of geese

feral kids
busting
an old
the couch
outside and love
concrete seat up
unfinished with hatchets
expansive

we’ve
been 
scared 
and 
hungry
broke
down
in the
snow

my hometown

of heat
course turns
I do into
dream-loss
laughter
textured
like rough
water

Smudged cat eyes

addicted to a narrative about suffering

……………………

stripped ruts of color tangled yellow   loose cores of flowers

dangling from a thread of web

what’s 
habit
anger 
fear or   
disa
ppoint
ment

what’s 
music 
myth
the 
bright
ness 
of child
hood

what 
will you
expend
of yours
to preserve 
another

perspective 

bobs in the noise of blue cranes   oil stains

serrated red leaves    stab at the margin

web- 
patterned praise
9-5 
autumn day
greasy
feathers

grey fur
faded
tinsel

dry aspen
leaves

painkillers
shaking
like coins

work
wildwork  

won’t
$$$ 
afford the 
luxury 
of thinking
praise
or ceremony

the crayfish
disband

carving sand & leaf-pulp

when we disturb the firmament

fall behind the action

flipping the rock

thought it 
would be 
this or that
meaning
an apple tree
full of finch
chatter

thought it
would be
catastrophic
to be a
failure Xmas
living lights buried
ghost under
estranged the snow
loop of
feelings

a jet-black squirrel
mining a velvety hole
in the trunk

it 
found
me
called 
me
left
me
she did
they (all)
did

I had 
integrity 
like a 
killdeer I
protecting work a 
the nest job
I

I I’m
sell-out trying
my family a fill
never command
$$$ for diamonds
sabbatical
shadow-
self 
be-
friended
a network

love 
seat
and
loss
opening 
my eyes
to provide
a fill
command
for diamonds

hoary
gold leaves

silver 
dollars 

scattered 
away from 
the vase

wintering
flowers
music 
buried 
flowers
music
laughter buried
in the yard

wintering love
attachments sweet as candy 

home 
water  rags
tied to
moving branches
a kiss 
frozen  flowers
to your cheek water moving

tied to  attachments
rags
sweet as candy

Nathan Hauke is the author of Indian Summer Recycling (The Magnificent Field, 2019), Every Living One (Horse Less Press, 2015), In the Marble of Your Animal Eyes (Publication Studio, 2013), and four chapbooks. His poems have been anthologized in Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press, 2015) and The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012).