Learning the Drill

Adults always tried to peer into our heads,
tinker with what went on in there,
control our tongues. Only one of them ever could.

We had to see Him regularly. For our own good.

We went unwillingly, quivering in the car,
to a house that was more than a house
in a neighborhood nicer than ours.

The side entrance was guarded by a woman in white.

Surrounded by faded Highlights and expired Time,
we waited in despair, dreading our turn in that oversized chair.

The lobby stunk of formaldehyde and the tiny flecks of bone
that He scraped off people’s skulls.

First some stranger’s kid went in, then a trembling sibling.

They’d come out pale, shoulders tense, faces strangely drooping.

Most were silent as they emerged, which was less distressing
than the gas and gabble of those who spoke.

Mother made odd promises: milkshakes to the docile.

At home, we were too big for these childish bribes,
but here in His harsh light – eyes pressed shut, fingers twitching –
we clutched stuffed talismen no longer needed in the dark.

For parents desperate to decipher the content of crania,
X-rays were not enough.

He pried open our jaws and slid in a mirror,
then played a tune on the edge of our molars.

The shrill music of metal against mandible
echoed insanely from within our ears.

We cried out, but it did no good.

We cried out. It was for our own good.

And it was. They were right, of course.

We chew, true, to this day. We even learned to floss.

And, while He never did extract the truth,
no priest at confession ever came so close to our secrets.

Better than Imagined

I sought out the darkness, savored it,
listened to the sirens
who begged to be kicked from the cliffs.
I took their breath away
literally, sensually, consensually.

They asked for direction and I made them kneel.
They asked for relief and I made them sob.
They asked for ecstasy and I left bruises.
They asked and I gave and it was good.

I walked into dreams, into mine, into others’.
I stole fistfuls of silent desires
and left them shrieking in public places.
I went beyond the borders of this world.

I went willingly and came back bloody.
Stumbling numb, I arrived
a stranger at my own table.
It was worth it. It was the only way through.

Do not listen to the fundamentalists.
Hear me speak, an evangelist of your imagination.
You must feed the appetites to sate them…
but only if you’re willing to fill yourself so full of beauty
that you may end up retching on your own identity.

I walked in the darkness because it was necessary.
Now I awaken at the horizon, my heart blazing.
It is blinding. It is beautiful. I delight in it. The light.
And here you are, pure and perfect, waiting for me to emerge.

Sunrise Crumbs Sticky Raincoat

I wake up in the rocking chair at sunrise,
the front of my raincoat sticky with crumbs.

My head throbs like a bass amp, suggesting
I’ll soon be receiving another message
in the form of a microbe.

I search for caffeine with the cold focus of a shark,
but we’ve already blown this week’s wages
on a few sticks of firewood and some buttered pasta.

Nights in this flat are so frigid I suspect
we’ll survive only by setting our hair ablaze
as broken moths batter the panes in hopeless prayer.

This is our garden. In need of weeding.

This is the flabby patrimony passed to us
by fathers who slid out the door when no one was watching.

So despite mama’s precautions,
here we are — the knights of Haight —
swearing oaths facedown in the dirt.

We wager cigarettes we don’t have over hands of euchre.

I bet my crutches on a sure thing — and lost —
as if you could vacuum a diamond out of this filthy carpet
or pan up gold in the open tank of our noisome toilet.

There’s no one watching over us now (except the crows)
and if you plan to stay, brother, trust me:
just keep your jacket on at all hours.

It's warmer that way, and you never know
when we'll have to make a swift exit.

Sloppy Harvest

I'm trying to catch up on several prompts I missed in recent weeks, and what better way to get started than with the challenge to run a race and write a poem in 75 seconds or less. Here's what happened when I took that dare, in the order these things came out of me. I've only left a couple of takes on the editing-room floor, and I tried not to tinker too much with what was on the page. I think I ended up with the lyrics to fourteen B-sides. Anyway, let's unleash the doggerel...

A greyhound flies down the line.
“Spinach, tonight?” says the man with the cigar.
“No, no, no. Place or show. Otherwise, I’m not eating at all,”
she replies, showing him the ticket in her hand.
And that’s how it went in those days,
when we were young and selling ourselves for Caesar.

**

Hit me. I’ll take another.
I’ll buy a vowel.
I’ll take a train to the other side of the oyster.
I’m riding what you’re hiding
and dying for the dream.

Hit me. I’ll take another.
I’m on fire.
I’ll retire.
I’m drowning my sorrows in water.
Firewater really oughta solve something.

Right? A solvent.

**

Scrubbing the backs of our minds we find the time that we were in Syria and went to the seaside only to find everything sliding off the edge of the earth into an afternoon of asteroids and that’s annoying when it’s not really what you planned for an outing with the kids. What’s a guy to do?

**

Another attempt. The bell and off we go.
It’s almost like swinging, desperately for your life,
against the fists of some other sick animal
thrown in the ring with you and trying to prove
its self-worth through vicious metaphors and wicked verbs
against the jaw, the ear, the kidney, the eyes.
It hurts to rip it up and lay it on the page. It hurts.

**

Too strict? I’m much too strict with myself.
Give me the rules and I play by the rules.
That’s the kind of fool I am.
Too strict? I’m much too strict with myself.
Tell me how it’s done and I’ll do it.
Kind? I’m much too kind with my hands.
My mind is another matter entirely,
judging, jeering, jangling at all hours.
Strict, and on the other hand too kind.

**

Running in the three-legged race at that picnic place
and all we know is that when this is over
we’ll really jump in the sack.

**

Off they go. Headlong. Headstrong. Young and nothin’ stops them.
Home they come. Burnt and jaded, blue jeans faded, and nothin’ll be the same.
That’s the story, again and again, the search for glory and the prodigal crash.
And ask yourself, when the pup comes back with its tail between its legs,
what if I tried to fly with these clumsy paws? Who would catch me, sweet?
Who would patch me up?

**

Focus breaks down the second the sound
of the keys in the lock of the internet turn,
keys clicking through the linking of her obsessions,
embarrassed sessions of nothing she’d like to tell.

But everyone knows her well – so no surprise waits inside
for history’s menu. She’ll clear her cache and rewrite it,
she thinks, kidding herself. She’s just a kid
with a much too powerful toy.

**

The editor awakes before you do,
and is already inspecting the way you make breakfast,
the temperature of the shower, the lateness of the hour.
Shouldn’t you have been awake by now, you ask yourself.
Shouldn’t you have been different than you are?
Every minute of every day. Who’s to say
the words would be better if you gave them time?

**

And then he came along,
an ivory-billed woodpecker
with something to prove.
Sat on the bar and told me his tale,
just for the price of a bottle of ale.
And I’m not sure who to believe.
Everyone else said he was nuts,
but the bayou never looked the same
after he explained
the way it all went down.
That’s why I moved to town.
I never looked back.
Packed up my bag and went down the levee.
No, I never looked back.

**

If I was a writer other than the writer I am
I wouldn’t sit and writhe here and wonder
what letters would come out of my pen.
But I’m the writer who’s a survivor
of living in editing hell.
So I’d be a liar if I put down a line here
that wasn’t quite ready to fail.

**

Funny. I’ve been here before.
I think I’ve dug a hole exactly this deep with a different shovel.
I dug three holes just like it, ten feet apart, with three different shovels.
If I recall correctly, the next step is
to clamber out of the hole
and blame someone else.
So let’s get on with it.

**

Just freeze in one place. That’s one way to deal with it.
Back up to see if you can escape. That’s how a cat would react.
Fluff up your feathers to appear as big as possible. Size might help.
Bark as loud as you can. Sometimes that’s the trick.
Strategies. Strategies. We get so stuck on them.

**

The wisdom of the barn, so long from where I live now.
Yet a horse taught me to bow when I walked that path.
May I remember his quiet grace as I kick at my stall today.

Lucky Monkey Living Large (or Hanuman’s Propitious Parade)

Lucky monkey feeling fine,

swinging on a lucky vine.

Monkey never had a fall.

No, not really. Not at all.

Lucky monkey. Lucky he.

Lucky monkey. Lucky she.

Lucky him and her are dating.

Lucky her and him are mating.

Lucky wedding. Lovely spouse.

Monkeys find a lucky house.
Baby monkey makes it three.

Lucky monkey family.

Monkey eat and monkey sleep.

Monkey mouth is full of teeth.

Eyes and ears and limbs intact.

Monkey lucky. Monkey fact.

Lucky monkey go to school.

Lucky monkey use a tool.

Look at what you have become
with your lucky monkey thumb.

Lucky birthday chimpanzee.

Monkey friends sing loud off key.

Hungry primates very nice:
let lucky monkey eat first slice.

Lucky monkey sing hosannas
o'er organic-grown bananas.

Lucky monkey pick and choose.

Privileged shopping. Privileged foods.

Monkey neighbor hard to love.

Monkey want to scuffle shove.

No no, monkey go inside.

Make crazy neighbor yummy pie.

Monkey don’t like where you are?

Plane, train, bus or bike or car.

Lucky monkey take a trip,
vacation on big monkey ship.

Monkey job make monkey cross.

Bossy ape is monkey boss.

Yet monkey live in luxury:
holidays and salary.

Lucky monkey student loan.

Lucky monkey mortgaged home.

Monkey credit score depressing?

Even what you owe’s a blessing.

Lucky monkey monthly fee.

Water, gas, utility.

Flush and O away it goes!

Where it stop no monkey knows.

Lucky monkey hear the storm
on the roof while you are warm.

Lucky monkey crank the heat.

Take a shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Monkey gripe and monkey groan.

Monkey grouse and carp and moan.

Lucky monkey picking nits.

Speech is free where monkey sits.

Lucky monkey talking stick,
singing bowl and magic trick.

Lucky monkey you are free
to choose thy own cosmology.

Lucky monkey watch TV.
Other monkeys howl and flee.
Flood and fire, bombs and tanks.

Monkey bend down low in thanks.

Lucky monkey ergo sum.

Wherefore art thou? Boom boom boom.

Hear the tuba. Hear the drums.

Something lucky this way comes.

First world monkey don't forget.

First world monkey fortunate.

Monkey birth is game of chance.

Monkey lucky circumstance.

Gorilla, gibbon, lemur, loris.

Different monkeys sing in chorus.

Lucky genus. Lucky us.

To live at all is glorious.

Lucky monkey. Lucky me.

Laughing in a lucky tree.

Lucky monkey. Lucky you.

Remember that you're lucky too.

Remembering it’s February

I saw my mother last night.

The whole family was walking to a wedding
when I realized I’d left home without my shoes.
The yellow polish on my toenails had almost flaked off.

I hurriedly explained how I had to go back
and dashed off without kissing her goodbye,
even though she’s been dead for five years
and I only see her on special occasions like this.

Then I accidentally stole a car and woke up thirsty.

Spring came early this year,
although I’m beginning to suspect that’s her favorite trick.

She comes early every year and then ducks back down to the bar for a while.

She stays just long enough for you to believe her caresses again,
waits until you’ve stepped out to meet her in a short-sleeved shirt
and then – bang – you’re on your own again, baby.

Yesterday the sky was grinning and the plum trees were full of blossoms.

Finches – I think they were finches – were hopping through the branches,
dipping their beaks with disbelief in white flower after flower.

Then the wind remembered it’s February and sang in the treetops all night.

This morning, waking again into mourning, the yard was so confused:
bare limbs shook and shivered in icy gusts
and the walk was covered with drifts that would’ve been snow
if I was a kid and two thousand miles away.

Snow? No, just the punch line to a cruel joke
where two early bloomers end up naked,
a pile of white petals around their ankles.

After a shower and two glasses of water,
I was alive enough to start making sense of it all.

The wind. The car. The wet flowers and my mother.

You’re on your own again, baby.

The days of paper routes and phone books

We would sit in the cherry tree,
high up on thin limbs that could barely hold a breeze,
looking for fruit that had ripened yet somehow escaped the squirrels.

We would sit under the bushes,
inside the bushes in fact, where grown-ups would never think to look.

We would hide inside cabinets and closets,
sometimes hide so well we wouldn’t know
the others had given up seeking and turned to snacks.

We would haul the dog up to the tree house
and pretend we didn’t hear our parents calling.

There were screens on the windows, of course,
but just the one screen in the house,
the size of a sheet of loose leaf,
and we were forbidden to watch its black and white opinions most of the time.

The phone was attached to the wall,
which was fine because people rarely called,
certainly not during dinner.

We didn’t think it was idyllic.

It wasn’t. It was just the suburbs
and kids came home from Vietnam in boxes
or ended up like Uncle Ray, pumped full of lithium
in Pilgrim State for trying acid or being gay or both.

The girl next door got picked up for breaking in
and stealing mom’s jewelry while we were on vacation
and suddenly the cat was missing an eye.

A microwave was merely some mystery of radio relay,
so dinner was more likely to be cold...
and it wasn’t called domestic violence yet
even though the churches were full of folk music.

We would hide under the eaves.

We would crawl beneath our beds.

We would sit inside the bushes,
bitten by brambles, bleeding from needles and thorns.

But it was quiet there, secret and safe,
and no one could find us for hours at a time.

The View from Cold Mountain

We lay our own traps,
pay handsomely for the privilege,
borrow, in fact, more than we’ve ever had
just to slip our necks inside the noose.

Yep, we cook our own goose,
fry up golden eggs while we’re at it
and invite our friends to dine
as if it’s a joyous occasion.

We buy objects that no one needs, in bulk,
unpack them into cabinets, cavernous,
and lovingly recycle the plastic bags
by tying them tightly around our necks.

We shop so carefully for our poison,
hire experts to help us estimate
exactly how much to consume each month
so we can die alongside the neighbors,
lawns as perfect as cemetery plots.

We buy our chains. We buy our locks.
We save our pennies in a box,
fretting about where it’s cached
while dreaming of a larger box.

A mortgage is literally a pledge to death
for each and every debt is less
a measure of pleasure in present tense
than memory of a past defense
against that which awaits each of us
regardless of interest or last address.

This area may contain assassins

You sauntered up, all legs, and calmly said,
“Just dance,” so I held you close,
head high, hips sly, tossing off bon mots
while keeping your sleek body
between me and that goon with the gun.

I ignored the nuns in the casino,
letting you sit in my lap for luck and black jack,
snapping your garter with each new card,
a surreptitious little superstition
that made you smirk
but quickly attracted the eye in the sky.

“Slide the winnings in a suitcase and fetch my car,”
I told the cage, flipping the dealer six chips as a tip
while surveillance cameras swiveled
to see the seams on your stockings
strut out to the street.

It’s remarkable anyone could drive
after all that cognac and champagne,
yet such a relief to know
you’d never slip something in my drink,
except maybe an organic lychee.

I went straight back to the cave,
not bothering to blindfold you
or take fake turns or
even worry about a tail.

Sure, they chewed me out the next day —
but I knew what I was doing.

The boys down in the motor pool
keep filling in the bullet holes and banging out the dents.

The lab has scrubbed the interior so many times,
our history could be told in a series of cigar stubs
and strands of hair in tiny, labeled plastic bags.
They even installed that baby ejector seat in back.

It’s been a long road,
with our share of ugly scenes, bad dialogue,
and more than a few continuity errors,
yet you’re still there
when I have to drop the top and hit the gas.

And before I even ask,
you’re elegantly passing me the pistol from the glove box.

You freshen your lipstick. I talk to my watch,
then we exchange familiar grins.
It’s going to be fine, baby.

It’s going to be just fine.

Ragged

Running, in bodies no longer built for
running, in wing tips, in heels, gasping for air,
uncertain even if we’re running away
or running after something, sitting,
merely sitting at desks and
drowning in our chests,
running, we suffocate in stress.

An entire office inhales and holds its breath.

An entire industry, afraid to exhale.

Running toward deadlines
with nothing save adrenaline for lunch,
running to stay ahead,
and a million brilliants coming up behind,
running on and on in electronic sentences,
sitting only yards apart and never speaking
except to scream. Running out of time.

The system is running but fragmented
and prone to fatal unexpected error.

Shut down. Restart. Running,
at last stumbling into the street.
How did it get so dark?
Running for cabs and buses and trains

still dealing with messages and claims,
running toward a receding line,
legs twitching helplessly,
lungs grabbing at nothing,
how is it that we're still singing,
as the life runs out of us,
singing for more, more, more?

Picasso in the rain

Welcome Aboard

Today you will be removing your clothes.

Ladies and gentlemen. Captain. Seat belt.

Carry-on luggage. Overhead bin.

Be sure to wear socks that don’t have holes.

Flight attendant. Mobile phones.

Navigational equipment. 10,000 feet.

Choose shoes that slip off easily.

Tampering with. Disabling.

Prohibited by law.

Select an outfit without a belt.

Television monitor. Seat pocket.

Full attention. Safety features.

You will be undressing in front of other people.

Metal fitting. Loose end. Strap.

Release. Buckle. Turbulence.

They won’t care much how you look.

Emergency exit. Floor lights.

Inflatable slide.

They won’t slip tips in your waistband.

Air pressure. Decompression.

Firmly over your nose and mouth.

Just strip quickly and move on.

Unlikely event. Cushion.

Life vest. Pull firmly on the cord.

Keep nothing in your pockets.

Uniformed crew member.

Inform you when it’s safe.

Present your documents and think before speaking.

Seat backs. Tray tables.

Full upright position.

Avoid being ethnic.

Departure. Cross-check.

Relax. Enjoy.

None of this is personal.

Prohibited Items for Travelers: An Airborne Luggage Ode

Box Cutters. Ice Axes/Ice Picks. Knives -
except for plastic or round-bladed butter knives.
Meat Cleavers. Razor Blades.
Sabers. Scissors. Swords.

Baseball Bats. Bows and Arrows.
Cricket Bats. Golf Clubs.
Hockey Sticks. Lacrosse Sticks.
Pool Cues. Ski Poles.
Spear Guns.

Ammunition. Compressed Air Guns.
Firearms. Flare Guns.
Flares. Gun Lighters. Gun Powder
including black powder and percussion caps.
Parts of Guns. Pellet Guns.
Starter Pistols.

Axes and Hatchets. Cattle Prods.
Crowbars. Hammers.
Drills and drill bits. Saws.
Tools (greater than seven inches in length).

Billy Clubs. Black Jacks.
Brass Knuckles. Kubatons.
Self Defense Sprays -
one 4-ounce (118ml) container of mace or pepper spray is permitted in Checked Baggage provided it is equipped with a safety mechanism to prevent accidental discharge. Self Defense Sprays containing more than 2% by mass of Tear Gas (CS or CN) are prohibited in Checked Baggage.
Night Sticks. Nunchakus.
Stun Guns/Shocking Devices. Throwing Stars.

Blasting Caps. Dynamite. Fireworks. Flares (in any form).
Hand Grenades. Plastic Explosives.
Realistic Replicas of Explosives.

Aerosol. Fuels. Gasoline. Gas Torches.
Lighter Fluid. Torch Lighters.
Strike-anywhere Matches.
Flammable Paints. Turpentine and Paint Thinner.
Realistic Replicas of Incendiaries.

Chlorine for Pools and Spas.
Fire extinguishers and other compressed gas cylinders.
Liquid Bleach. Spillable Batteries -
except those in wheelchairs.
Spray Paint. Tear Gas. Vehicle Airbags.

Gel-type candles. Gel shoe inserts.
Flammable liquid, gel, or aerosol paint.
Snow globes and like decorations
regardless of size or amount of liquid inside,
even with documentation.

One Stop from Warsaw

The city slips away in the wrong direction,
a breath-stealing, helpless realization
that takes place too late,
like discovering one’s manners
vanished with one’s drink.

Having boarded the incorrect train,
leaping off at the next station
is not always the best solution…

Yet eager to rectify an error,
who stops to think?

The reward for decisive action:
a desolate platform, the squat, dark stationhouse.
Shattered windows, dangling doors.

No schedule of future arrivals, no one to ask,
no relevant vocabulary even given the chance.

Disembarking is as momentous
as departing — or should be —
but we heap the glory
on an audacious beginning, and on the journey,
taking for granted a safe, if haggard, return home.

Tar-dipped telephone poles,
now wireless, recede into humid thickets.

The afternoon buzzes
with a pilgrim’s silence,
alarming to any still in transit.

Solicitous, suspicious, hostile, indifferent,
the entrance of any eyes would be welcome,
would likely dictate the day’s outcome,
except the only occurrence more intuitively improbable
is the blessed spitting of another train’s brakes.

Rash decisions can leave one stranded
in burgs served, revenue permitting,
by a limping, subsidized local.

At best.

Prop up the legs of that splintering bench.

This is not an island
of sirens, witches, giants, storms.

This is a place,
alone, to wait.

Which may be the most fearsome adventure yet.

Scene of the crime

Strolling through a college town is like playing lead inspector
in some curbside murder mystery —
clues strewn everywhere in the gutter —

broken glass, an abandoned shoe, latex gloves,
a boutonniere that lost its bud, leaving only lace, brown ribbon, and a pin.

Who done what to whom and why?

Even the police drive those humming little hybrid cars,
which sneak up likewise on pedestrians and bad guys,
and when elections roll around
a slate of suspects reveal their motives
with little plastic signs posted on every other lawn.

In autumn, a cast of characters arrives,
dressed to the nines and rushing in out of the rain.
They bear boxes packed with military precision
and a series of bags marked with a Target.

It’s all smiles and bright expectations for the pursuit
of knowledge, pussy, and some really good parties.

Yet we all know, as they innocently lug
freshly painted bookshelves up the stairs,
that at least one of those objects has a bull’s-eye on its back.

Winter is the time of appliances.
Everyone has an alibi:
vacuum cleaners gargling carpet, dryers churning denim,
and the incessant tap-dance of computer keys.

It’s enough to send a man over the edge.

Instead, walk the streets at dawn when everything is silent
or late, when it’s all reveling stereos and studious tequila shots.

Bang! Suddenly it’s May, and they return to the scene of the crime.

Threadbare sofas, moldy futons, and the odd barber chair
come outside for air, lining up on the sidewalk
alongside the milk crates and cinder blocks
pressed into service as undergraduate furniture.

The ringleaders strand them there by the dumpster
and head home for summer, gossiping

about who done what to whom and why.

But despite parole, garbage like that don’t last long on the outside.

Soon enough, it’s swept up by another gang,
thrown in a dormitory cell, where,
surrounded by the scent of bud,
it must hold up a liquor store for one more year.

Heading back to bed on the equinox

With the light at my back,
slowly the black of your room
begins to take shape...
the curve of a curtain,
the slant of that lamp,
soft edge of your bed.

I wait, and watch, and wait,
as my midnight eyes adjust,
reluctant to rush to your side.
It's too soon for me to know
your apartment in the dark.

Then you give a start,
rolling over with a charming murmur.
"A glass of water," I explain,
though I know you're not awake.

Spilled drink, skinned shins,
broken bric-a-brac —
there's little to be gained from
stumbling about in the dark.
Yet isn't that what we've been doing?

We hold tight to one another in the night,
hand to hip, nose to nape,
knee tucked neatly inside knee.
But what do you really know of me,
a mystery perhaps as dangerous
as I appear, looming
in this Victorian doorway.

Yet it's you, tiny you,
that I see as a threat,
a sighing silhouette guilty
of inexplicable crime:
trust, unearned, falls asleep
on my chest week after week.

My clothes, my keys,
I could just leave...
yet there you sleep and dream and breathe
with me upon your threshold.
I wait, and watch, and wait.

And at last, yes, I step
carefully, consciously, into your room,
unsure of my footing, unsure of the way,
but continuing to seek our equilibrium.
Our days grow shorter, my dear,
the year grows dark —
will you meet me completely
in autumn and still
retain the faint outline of yourself?

December on Long Island

Wrapped in an afghan that outlived grandma,
you lie on the couch and mumble
that the tree’s leaning to the left
as we jam it in the stand.

Dad, cursing, denies it’s crooked,
until he steps back and informs us of this fact
as if you’d never said a word.

Then he returns to the truck,
leaving melting footprints on the rug.

Mom brings in some ornaments
and also abandons the scene.

The doctors agree that you shouldn’t be here for Christmas.

You should get to the clinic, the program,
the euphemism, immediately.

“Aspirated vomit. Sedate and restrain.”
You should never have been discharged without a plan.

Dad says it sounds like a country club.

Mom says whatever it takes.

I say as little as possible
and let you direct the routine.

“Hang that little soldier on the left.”

“Are there more of those gold bells?”

“That’s good. I’m feeling minimalist this year.”

You spent Advent with a ventilator in your throat
while storms swept through like grim adolescent moods,
sleet, hail, snow, rain, and random days of clarity.
Now you sit there, watch movies, and wheeze.

I plug in the Christmas lights,
although I put no stock in Christ.

You stumbled through the sliding doors,
screaming of hell and slavery,
swinging wildly at nurses and orderlies…

three days before we found you in ICU
with its blinking red and white lights.

Do you even know who dropped you at the hospital?

I stand on my chair and adjust the star.

I ask what’s next
and you know I don’t mean the tree.

We hear Mom chopping something in the kitchen,
Dad grunting as he shovels snow.

“I don’t know. I’m skeptical.”

The fire sputters in the grate.

“I only recognize one higher power,
and it’s kind of hard to surrender to the weather.”

We gaze out the window,
where reindeer graze on a neighbor’s lawn.

You sip some broth and cough.

Then your head lolls on its haphazard pile of pillows,
so I darken the room and doubtfully listen to you breathe.

Outside, as the sun goes down, the wind picks up.

Bounce

Today, they say, the birth of a planet
is taking place — evidenced by nothing
but bounce. Under a star,
propitious or not, a world is whelped.

Meanwhile, we are playing cribbage,
not realizing the dog has run off.

Bouncing starlight. That’s the clue.

It’s bouncing, they explain, off dust
100 times smaller than the smallest
of my thinning hairs. Dust so small
they believed it wouldn’t bounce.

You cut up a jack. Two points.

Your face is blank. Are you concentrating,
strategizing? Should I be concerned?

Are you upset that I’m skunking you?

I could say something sweet.

Maybe you’re angry about yesterday.

You smile, play a three. It’s all in my mind.

The newspaper says the most beautiful things.

“Planetary systems are blossoming.”

“Ghost clouds of the Milky Way incubate stars.”

Telescopes are spinning on satellites
above the lawn chairs in our back yard.

The newspaper deploys words I don’t understand.

We look, we listen, we deduce.

I make up stories in my head
about the stories in your head.

Sometimes I ask.

Sometimes even you can’t say
what’s going on in there…

Annoying, absurd, until suddenly
I too discover I'm spinning,
inexplicably
out of control.

Down the block, the dog
turns three times, curls up.

Infrared, ultrasound, coreshine.

Ghost clouds and dark cocoons.

The pre-embryonic phase.

(Photo of heartbreaking beauty
courtesy of NASA/Caltech.)

“We’ve found a new way to peer into them,”

an astronomer tells UPI.

“These huge areas where stars are born,
they’re shy and hide themselves.

We see them, but we also see through them.”

You hit 31 on the nose.

I’m lousy at counting cards.

I don’t begin to understand the odds,
let alone the moon, other galaxies
or wifi or my carburetor. The sky is alive,
yet we keep searching it for signs of life.

“Why the hell did we have that argument?”

I ask, as you count the points in the crib.
No reply, except the sun
shining through the ginkgo tree.

“I think, mainly, because I skipped lunch.

I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Low blood sugar. Low self-esteem.

“I can’t make any sense of it.”

Goodbye

They’ve lined up at my window tonight,
ancestors, lovers, querulous neighbors,
teachers and bosses, boorish civil servants,
that kid from third grade…
a host of spirits unable to rest.
Murmuring, they wait for their turn
in my mind. Perhaps they carry grievances
of their own, but this is not why they’ve come.
I keep them on call to relive my petty complaints.

They don’t rap at the glass or scratch at the screen.
They don’t stagger, bleeding or moaning,
up my street like drive-in ghouls.
They dress neatly, queue patiently,
very much alive to me,
no older than our last encounter.

Astonishing, how I can adorn
the fecund plum tree outside my bedroom
with resentments. It takes focus and devotion
to burnish the delicate ornaments of my anger
and string them so carefully in the limbs.
Even better, the tiny ringing that they make,
swinging in the wind as the leaves yellow
like aging affidavits in some bitter archive.
A tree would let them simply blow away
but I do not forget.

They’ve lined up at my window tonight,
no matter that it’s three floors up.
I have time for each of them. I cue
their agitation and we repeat our scenes,
hurling invective again and again
so that someday — maybe someday —
I may reinterpret these lines.

I treasure my invisible guests,
cherish their argumentative gifts,
make a fetish of my pain.
I gladly open my own wounds to the night.
Because I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.