What becomes ischemic
when long denied hope?
Deferral and deferral
how long must it go on
for living tissue
about thirty minutes
before it’s irreversible
and reperfusion though vital
just adds injury on insult
and this hurts
unless it’s good and dead
and then you better
cut it out quick
but just how the hell
would you debride
a soul?
Or determine the margins
of what’s left
if anything
This breeze is coming in
from somewhere
is every bit
as intentional as
this dappled sun
these lean robins
the pagan call
of the flicker
that echoes
from the maples
shouting
what we all
already know
slowly but surely
color is returning
to this world
Full of fog-deadened
air the forest
so still that a breath
is all that stirs,
no birds,
and I almost feel guilt
for taking one in,
so rare is the air here,
so alien the sky,
so unworldly
this morning
among the immediacy
of trunks: pine,
fir, pine, fir, fir,
pine, cedar–
I’ve only come
to set my emptiness
in a greater stretch of it,
to sit a bit somewhere
where silence is still
the rule, and yet
I’m still
the exception
even here
these lungs
and heart the tell
When St Valentine came to the States
he found work in a meat-packing plant
living with some Slavs
in a tenement just beyond
the stockyards. Blue-eyed, stout,
he broke down carcasses daily
and the vagaries of a new language,
naming his children things like Jenny
and Fred and coming home smelling
of offal and blood until Valentin
became Valent became William,
shedding the weight he had gained
as a new-eyed baby—
the crimson name of a martyr
in some stony Slovak church
in some poor translation
of life after death. And yet
he grew up to know
exactly how heavy a heart feels
in the hand,
the sweet-sour stench
of viscera,
and he hacked
and packed pig’s feet
until the day he died
again
and was buried out in Hillside,
Our Lady of Sorrows.
I called both fights,
the Armenian,
then Adams,
the latter spelling out
his bad intentions
with a nasty right hook,
the former,
though rusty, knowing
every trick in the book.
Oh, age.
I could be proud
that I’m never surprised
but I’d trade it all
for something unpredictable
for once, not just Friday nights
in sweats, texting my dad
about the fights—
I think this guy will win,
and then he does.
What did Teddy say?
Something about needing
lightning of out a clear sky—
I want a shake-up, I want
an upset, I want
to want, again,
something staggering,
for my heart
to land
just like a blow–
some sharp and solid
and lasting
connection.
And then they returned
those birds
to stratify
the sky
to incise
with wings
their variable
trajectories
and sometimes a sign
is actually a sign
like when one letter
burnt out so that
the neon spelled
a name
once spoken
still known
if barely
but no I’ve heard
that song before
it seems if anything
that hope precludes
action
and a chance
sighting
on the street
is only routine
entropy
hokum really
even today
I crossed someone
three times
by the OR then
the PACU then outside
under all this gray
and he was sad
each time
that’s all I know
and knowing
precludes hope
for sure
and it’s not
giving up
so stop telling
don’t
you don’t know
but he does
and how
and so do I
now
Where does a bird go
when it rains
this hard
I’ve seen nests
scribbled
in lean branches
but it doesn’t
add up
like how does fog
mask emphatic rock,
these glaciered
exclamations?
These mornings
do not suit
these days–
sunrise
giving in
to rain
the mountains
fade
the snarl
of birds
the feathered
cloud
that hovers up
above the ave
like modern augurs
has been gone
for days,
God,
what does that
foretell?
There’s gradients of silence–
the moment just before
the PA system comes on,
the moment just
before the voice
calls a code,
the moment
after
.
And every voice
there ever was
started as
a child’s voice
.
Is that why
we’re so eager
to rush, to save?
Or is it salvation
by action,
by lack of thought?
.
After a while
you can tell apart
each wing
of this hospital
by the timbre
of its lighting–
West is yellow,
East is blue,
every floor
is sterile
.
And every
elevator
has a button
CODE BLUE
that grants
complete control
of the stainless
steel box
.
Two inked words
behind a slab
of plastic
that evoke
a sort of reverence
by allusion
and the sinking
of the stomach
as the box quickly
changes course
.
And every voice
there ever was
started as
a child’s voice
.
And every
silence
is its own
retort
These nights predictable
as the twelve-bar blues
this life too
it’s bound to leave
you behind
it’s bound
to leave you
and it’s a shame
the rain passed
through
the sky so
starless still
there’s nothing
outside the window
nothing seeable
and even I
would sing
if it could make
that nothing
less so
An unseen bird sings a one-note
song that almost slides into two
sleeping with eyes open
the old dog hears it too,
incessant, incessant,
the invitation had said
silence.
.
An amber bead suspended
in the window frame
opens up
into
a spider
.
What kind of bird is it?
One bird, one song, one note,
and no response,
what does it ask, who
does it ask,
could it be me
could it be
what sort,
what sort, of animal are you?
.
A half-tailed cat stalks
the unseen bird
the old dog
half-sees
the half-tailed cat
The bird falls silent
the dog falls asleep
and the cat
it doesn’t see us
.
We see,
but through a mirror,
darkly; it’s unclear
which side
of the glass
the spider is
climbing on,
or how
it knows
when it’s gone
high
enough
.
And how
do we know
who asked us
here?
None of us
can see
the unseen
bird
.
Or reclaim
the minutes
of a morning,
going
OPTIONAL POETRY 