Looking for
something else
I found an old photo—
What a trick
it would be to slip
back into life,
especially
my own.
.
Oh that a want
would just come
when called,
like an obedient dog,
not some
senile, pissy cat.
.
Or was it I
was meant to sit
and stay?
The whole time
I thought I was
out there taming things.
.
This air is just too stale
for remembering—
the sky loosing
its gloss to dusk,
the streetlamps
illumining,
another day
closing like a door.
A dream before sleep
or a lapse in place,
Venice, the path
to the piazza,
under our feet
a watery moon,
we were lost but
didn’t care,
we had no place
to be, and all
the gondolas were
moored, only now
does that seem
prescient.
Think of a cardinal
and I think of snow
the natural background
for that berry of a bird
on a card you gave me
once that you pasted
in a book so what
if it was summer
when we watched one
one last time
the leather on the
chair was cracked
it was auburn it was
orange it was afternoon
and memories are nothing
more than fabrications
built to furnish
emptying rooms
and there must be a statute
of limitation on grief
as to try and touch
them now leaves
my traces in the dust
a quick erasure
of a slow process
but a bird remembered
is never just a bird
the house is gone now
the estate sale held
and how else
could I carry it all
along except
by thinking wings
by thinking wings
of shocking red
to keep you in sight
against the bleak
erasures of winter
and of time.
A river coursing
in the street,
the sky a strange
yellow above
the newly
mangroved lawn,
and inside
it’s still
a bottle
of yawns;
it sure gets boring
inside this Ark.
First rain, then wind later,
this front moves through
mechanically, going
through motions
with little soul, the dog
can’t even bring herself
to bark in alarm.
Instead we sleep
away the dead days,
and waking, are called
back, the sound
of a broken bough
falling is pillowy,
landing, it comes
to rest, comes
to rest.
I am starting
to understand
this need for
jargon,
how to hold on
to our humanity
we simplify
others’
noting agonal breathing
not drowning
on dry land.
Kindness?
You could argue it
either way,
and what’s the point?
I just noticed you can see
the whole stadium
from the parking lot,
a clear view of green
serene lanes of turf–
that’ll be nice
come summer.
[DNR/DNI]
It rained tonight,
really rained,
for the first time
this year–
I wonder if
you were still
around to see it.
On the floor
it’s always
endings
or the beginning
of ends
and there’s two
ways you can
go out that door
and I’d call
either of them
leaving.
[Honesty]
We regret
that nothing good
can follow
these two words.
Still writing December
this new month left me
behind, already
and the night now
hesitates
to come and cover
my confusion
and twilight
is the exact shade of
go out and go by
like everything else
so fast
it feels slow
in that way
a crash does.
A mouse in the wall.
Why write at all?
These are hidden
sorts of noise.
.
And you can fill
a hole but not
a distance.
.
I’m trying not
to try.
OPTIONAL POETRY 