from Tug Dumbly’s “Son Songs”

Three Degrees of Okay

Old farm sheds
perfect parallelograms
leaning aslant 
in a frozen dance
with the wind.

Evening clouds 
a slow salmon 
as you breathe through 
the gills of the sky.

How easy it is 
for things to go right
to let slip the weight 
of expectation 
duck the pendulum 
of pessimism
let it swing into the shadows 
like a slow swooping bat.