poem

 The Other Side of the Mirror

How many do it—

Look in the mirror, at their life

And say I did that

Kitchen cabinets, stacks of books

A drawer full of bolts and screws

Left over from self assemble furniture kits

Cars in the garage

The kids, the wives

The loss, the broken glass

Swept up long ago 

And scooped in the trash 

Crickets in September

And fireflies speckling the backyard 

As a boy darts through the dusk

Like a silver minnow around your feet

In a shallow river 

All you want to do is stand still

And watch him circling your ankles

As long as you can

Until the current whisks him away

Not just what is owned

But what is made 

And who has the best claim

Even to say the continuity of shared days

Is enough, isn’t quite enough

No longer who you once were

Nor the man once expected,

Someone else,

Clinging to the artifacts 

Of a stranger’s existence.

But you found a loophole,

A way out of the sullen despair—

Look through the mirror

And give everything away

Voila! Happy and ignorant again!

Deeply engrossed again in a project

That will surely produce something 

Of value, strange and new, a piece

A man calling himself you

Insists belongs to him

12/18/25

poem

 Miss Page

I remember reading as a boy

But hardly ever being read to,

Though I’m sure it happened

Most days with mom.

I do remember Miss Page,

Our school librarian, reading 

To us while we sat

Cross-legged on the floor

Of the old school library.

She held the book splayed open

With the pictures and words 

Facing us and the story would spill

From her lips from behind the covers

Like the disembodied voice of a movie narrator.

I didn’t like that very much

Because I knew you had to see

The words to be able to read.

I didn’t care about the pictures

I only wanted to trust 

The things I heard.

Well it was a lesson I must

Have taken to heart.

To this day I hold up the story 

Of my life for everyone to see

And tell them what’s happening

Before they have a chance 

To read what the words actually say

12/18/25

poem

 Self-Care

When he’s sad the doctor goes to the hospital,

His hospital, the one where he works 

Because that’s where he knows what to do

Even if he isn’t on call and no one needs him now.

Slips in through the side door using his keycard

And unlocks the doors to his office.

There’s no one here to talk to about his sorrow

No one to diagnose disease or render treatment.

This is a mangled form of self care

Barely better than alcoholic numbing.

But here there is purpose 

And easily perceived meaning.

He logs on to the computer, opens

His patient list and checks

Labs, xray results, the new names 

Of souls he has been asked to see.

Outside the cars on the highway flash

And pulse like the tracings of an ICU monitor

Telling us the city is still alive.

He watches a while longer,

Longer than anyone else would,

Long enough to forget 

Why he came here 

And then he returns home.

12/18/25

poem

The Opposite of Love

One day you will be asked

To define the opposite of love 

And your answer to that question

Will determine whatever happens next 

If you say hate it means 

You have to hold on

To some of your hatred

To remember what love is

Which is why even jesus

Isn’t allowed to forgive the devil.

If you say nothingness 

It means that love is the impetus

For everything that exists

Which makes a goddess of love 

Who spreads her wings

And demands the universe manifest.

When everything comes from love

All that’s left to claim is an emptiness 

Estranged from even the deepest despair.

Whichever one you choose

Don’t ever forget it because 

Every time love is missed or lost

Or outright rejected

The other side of the ledger

Must be balanced—

Either hate increases

Or the universe shrinks 

To the size of the very first thing.

12/18/25 

poem

Lapse

Sometimes it lapses

I lose the focus

Vision shrivels to a curdle

A hazy film between me and the world

Sunrise breaking is just another day

And I’m running out of time

Back to work, the year end blitz.

This white blizzard is only a hazard

That needs to be plowed.

Ice glazing the branches bends

The backs of the front yard trees

Away from the house 

Like stooped old men 

Who ought to be retired.

The sky is barely purple

An illusion that’s real

One mirage after another

Sorted and classified according

To the business and politics of life,

Columned in orderly ledgers.

Is barely purple, the sky.

Look, it’s barely purple

12/18/25 

poem

 Gray December

Gray Sunday, early December sky

As if someone had poured what color

Was left of the world in a bowl

And stirred it whole

I dip my brush and write 

What needs to be said 

In the hard impenetrable ground

Invisible ink you have to wait

Until spring to read 

What the frozen world 

Was afraid to say out loud

12/18/25