too tired to
sleep
a small gold moth
darts in the dark
like doubt
or a heartbeat
the night
puts an edge
on memories
no answer, no
answer, those
were answers enough
September 12
Woke up to End
of Days, the sun
an angry ember
in an asbestos sky,
the only thing
not on fire,
and still death
to breathe–
woke up to a burning
throat, eyes wet
but even that
moisture went–
woke up to a sunset
at dawn, a dead day,
smoke following us
as far as we could flee,
South, West, the sky
never got right–
that sick yellow hue
of a blister–
we kept all the windows
shut and it didn’t matter,
smoke got in,
permeated our clothes,
hung like a shroud
over unseen mountains,
the tinderbox trees,
the ashen disasters.
September 1
Untethering in stages–
the front door closed
the train from work
mechanical issues
a gate change,
delayed, the salmon sky
turned black now,
it’s beginning
to feel late, but
when did I leave,
or have I left yet?
Also a gradient,
shades of leaving,
and arriving,
and still customs to clear
when we get there,
a man paces, a baby
sleeps likes a baby
in a collapsible stroller,
stasis, the man curses
under his breath, static
on the overhead,
another gate change,
exodus of disbelief
we flood into the concourse,
and still no plane, we are all nowhere
except manifestly,
here
August 28
Windows down driving
over the lake
the green scent of it
languid humidity
and the city lights
gem-hued, strewn across
sky and water,
for seventy-thousand
seven hundred and ten
feet, some peace,
spanning the gap,
the longest
floating bridge
in the world,
except
for hope
August 25
This anger would be easier
if I was a painter,
could spill it out
in cadmium red
and yellow ochre,
let layers build up–
.
This anger has texture,
rough as a raised fist.
In solidarity, or to land
a blow?
I don’t know,
it chokes out eloquence.
.
How could such hate
be lauded? Add some cheap
gold foil to the composition,
scattered senselessly.
Rabidly.
.
A heart is a muscle,
it can fail, I know, but this
is an infarction of the soul.
Tear it down and start over.
.
If only love was enough
of a coat of armor.
This anger would be easier
if I was a sculptor,
striking and discarding
in order to bring order,
and thereby proving
it exists.
.
A full suit, in granite, immobile as grief.
.
No a night sky, stars made of headlights,
and none of them out. God,
the first time I heard your voice
say officer—
I didn’t know you kept another you
inside you like that.
.
They’re stealing our jobs!
And more dog whistles.
No. This is a sic ’em.
This is open season.
This is the man who said
Well you know, they call you KKK.
They did me. I think it’s an honor.
Yes he did say that.
.
This anger would be easier
if words mattered at all.
.
Non-PC
and Boys Being Boys
and The Officer Felt Threatened
and Lots of People Are Saying
and Folks I Tell It Like It Is
rising up like ballons, so full of it.
.
And this heart, a big box of pins
What does “our heritage” mean?
August 24
I could sleep now
in this raft of a bed,
or later, or eat
an unreasonable dinner,
or make something sensible,
or wait, getting lost
in a book, or a thought,
or these small rooms,
quieter in your abscence.
Another city night,
some man sings loudly
into the velvety dusk,
and it’s not clear
whether the high rises
are cast in cool blue
hues due to this sky
or to their glass
or if such a distinction
could even be made.
Cold at night now,
I close the windows
and draw the shades,
ruminating on
negative space.
August 21
A magnitude of difference
between true totality
and ninety-eight percent.
Even so, and for only ninety-three,
we rushed out after rounds
and off the floors
and gathered on the roof
in scrubs and scrub caps
or business casual
sharing cheap glasses
and cardboard viewers
and temporarily forgetting
the code just moments earlier—
occluded vessels, and an open chest.
I didn’t hear them call it,
had stared from the corridor
at the vacant face, unsure,
but only briefly.
Some artist said art is an action
against, a denial of death.
Exquisite contrast here:
a light goes out permanently–
no fractions, shades, or nuance.
Minutes before totality
our shadows turned sinuous,
like warped x-rays,
long and lithe and wrong.
Filtered through the trees,
a thousand shadow-crescents,
cast by the pinhole spaces
between the leaves,
too small to see directly.
Even seven percent of sun
was bright as day—
someone from HR said
it felt just a bit colder.
Only through dark glasses,
or projected onto the far side
of a box, was the eclipse
discernable. Nothing ever stopped
moving: the earth, the moon, the sun—
only an alignment of orbits,
perfect somewhere else,
but nearly perfect here,
which is sometimes enough.
August 17
Not imperceptibly
the days get shorter–
slight variance,
shade of dawn ochre,
another day comes
crashing in.
I went to the counter-rally
pretending to be a photographer,
but when the ball blasts
went off I just ran
without thinking
or taking any shots
of the bodies hurtling
toward me in a haze
of chemical dispersal,
covered ground
without comprehension
or feeling, only
seconds later
realizing
what I had
and had not done.
The days accelerate–
a high shutter speed stops
movement but requires
more light. These days
I stay up too late
and undercook everything–
some of these days are already
nights.
August 10
That full moon
like a brass button
studding the night,
implying perforation,
adeherence, closure.
In some places
it was occluded,
tarnished–
but we couldn’t see it
from where we sat,
adrift in a deep night
that fell like a curtain.
For every word
a third unspoken.
That full, full moon
and the Earth’s shadow
encroaching. The very
papable weight
of nothing.
OPTIONAL POETRY 