This is the split corpse of a child,
his dull lavender bowels
spilling across a thigh.
This is the mother, bent and keening
while father mutters ancient words
anguish has stripped of meaning.
This dusty pile of stone was once a hospital.
This is rebar. This is a leg.
This is a gray hand reaching from the rubble.
I am a tiny yellow wire
carrying current for a lumbering machine
paving a path with thunder, iron and fire.
The Real Writer
The real writer knows that every true sentence
He gets down on paper is part of a long
Erasure.
By the time he is an old man there is nearly
Nothing left.
Who wrote all that? someone asks
And he can only shrug
Blissfully unaware of all those lonesome nights
Of frustrated yearning and sullen labor.
His forgetfulness is his last fact.
He has emptied himself of all history and feeling
Now, and only now, is he able to receive everything
In its purest, most forgivable form.
It passes right through him
Like wind through an old tire
Hanging from a low limb
October
October clouds piled high
like down comforters
blocking rumors of sun and sky
A fall chill seeps through cracks
in casement windows
someone forgot to seal
Strange blankets
stored in dank closets
for days like these
But too high to reach
not even with a stool
nothing to do but shiver
Even worse is the mid afternoon
dispersal when the proven fact
of sun clears the last veil of vapors
Cloudless, infinite sky
suddenly unceilinged.
to look up is dizzying
a vertigo of the already fallen
seeing for the first time
the extent of the fallVenous Return
Anytime I get lost I just find a vein
On your arm and follow it back
To your heart
Arteries are paths for skeleton pirates
To tote their treasures downriver
Deep into the hungry dark forest
At the end of the line
Everything is unloaded
From the front cargo hold
Even the stowaways
Are cast onto shore
Never to be seen again
Catching Cold
It’s sleeting outside but
I slant through the slashing
Slivers of ice unscathed
An old woman is waiting inside
Saying you’ll catch the death of you
As she hands me a heavy blanket
Which renews a lapsed hope.
Till then I’d assumed
That death was already here
Lying fallow in a nerve root
Like a dormant virus
Patiently waiting to reappear
As a painful red rash
Lashed across my back
When I’m old and frail.
So I took it as a challenge
And made a game of it
Because games can be won.
I dropped the blanket and dashed outside
Where the sleet had turned to snow
And I raced the flakes for the ground
The Gift of Maps
There is a reason men like maps—
A man with a map is a man with a plan.
He’s on the verge of figuring it all out.
Any kind will do— political, thematic,
Topographic, pornographic, geologic,
Your basic road map.
The room silences watching him carefully unfold
Accordion creases of Rand McNally’s finest
Across the span of the dining room table.
The look on his face is arcade enlightenment.
Rest assured, Dad will find the fastest route.
We all cling to the first map we ever got
From way back when we were boys.
Usually it was a gift
From someone who loved us
In lieu of a simpler love.
My boy is in the process
Of getting one from me.
Of course he might not use it;
I would never force him to.
He may find another way to get
Where he thinks he needs to go.
But it's nice to have a map
When you’re first starting out,
To see where you are and what’s ahead—
Landmarks to look out for,
Contingency detours in case
Of heavy traffic or natural disaster.
I still have mine
Folded up and tucked away
In the secret drawer of my heart.
Every now and then I open it up
To remind myself of the beginning
And how I found my way out.
It’s strange to look at it now—
Crude etchings of hills and rivers,
Verdant valleys and curving roads
All colored in crayon
Annotated in the wobbly hand
Of a child. Then I remember
I was never actually gifted one
Like all the other boys—
I had to make my own.
Jigsaw Puzzle
Now we are a jigsaw puzzle
With all its pieces
Sealed in the box.
Everything is there
Nothing is lost
It has no corners
But all of the colors
And no one knows
What scene it will show
When we’re done.
Are you ready to start?
The Beach
The lovers, once they’ve found
One another, and not before,
Find their way to the shore
Because the beach
Belongs to neither the sea
Nor the land
Though it partakes of each.
Then a long walk holding hands
On smoothed gray sand
Where waves collapse
And anoint our crimsoned feet.
Here, in this middle place
Where we cannot drown
Nor put any roots down
We walk. We breathe. We live.
Here, something is just beginning
Or finally ending, pending one's perspective.
It’s the one place where everything
We’ve ever wanted is one step away
Even as it all recedes from us.
So we saunter on
As if our lives depended on it
As far as the shore will take us
Turning neither right nor left
Neither land nor sea
Lost in the certainty
Of this seam of reality
That is neither one nor two
No longer me
But not quite you.
A Choice
The worst thing that can happen with nice
Is performative or platitudinous
But mean easily calcifies into habitual
Thoughtlessness, grinding down molars
Until it’s just another meat
You have to learn to chew.
If you’re going to be nice
Be nice and mean it.
Use your grown up voice.
And if you’re going to be mean
Do it once
And regret it.
Or don’t.
Which was the first time
Anyone ever noticed
You could be mean
Or you could be nice
That there’s a choice
Schrödinger's Cat
We’re all Schrödinger's cat
Waiting in the dark box
Prisoners of our own fate,
Hoping to be seen,
To know once and for all
If we’re still alive or dead.
It’s not to be taken literally!
The point is about probability!
Say the last holy men on earth.
I say, what about the cat
While it’s waiting,
Does that count as living?
What about the box?
Can it be used again
Once it’s been filled with rot?
Who or what goes in the box next?
What about the guy who checks?
Who’s watching him
When he lifts the lid?
