OPTIONAL POETRY

Are these the only choices? A list
of footnotes, an orderly room, or

the three AM bird and a glut of words,
a feeling that something is due, something

needs doing, a stomach ache, a hunger.
Guilt. And which do I prefer? Strange,

to miss missing. What good does it do
to say: Death is a ebb tide, grief

is a flow, neither has a clear beginning,
or end. Everyone knows it. I could write

lines about the littoral / the literal,
but tonight I’m inclined to turn my nose

up at charity, oblation, alliteration,
despite tiny shells and sea glass

smoothed and left as parting gifts.
So what if I say it? Everyone knows.

It’s muggy here, inviting
sluggishness, there’s not

enough boxes to pack anyway,
decisions can be made in

a week, a few days, there’s no
need for reaching, grasping,

the breeze moves me, that’s
all. Outside the kid from

upstairs is doing soccer drills,
first touch and quibbling about

fairness. Even here the grass
is starting to yellow. His feet

beat the ball like a drum, ready
to put it in the net, the goal

of motion always to come to rest,
even if it doesn’t know it.

Last night brought the hills in close,
late afternoon and they’re back in place.

The lake looks deep, scored by whitecaps
and racing boats. Finally the deck

is in the shade, and it’s almost time
to leave. Would that I could bottle

a place, could stay to watch the bats
drop out of a nearly empty sky just

one more time, to stay up late and sit
outside as the landscape gives off

radiant heat long into the night
and the lights in town come on one by one.

Mostly overcast, and how. Where
have the colors gone, the spark
of early summer giving way to
heat-bleached tones. Or maybe
it’s me, lost in dreams as
deadlines approach, lured by
drama on the pitch and grand scale
emotions, like the moths to the
lamp outside the garage door,
to  bright lights, to easy escape,
a vida em outras línguas, the eternal
promise of somewhere else.

A Western skink,
slunk along a rock

with its tail like ink.
I have never instinctively

liked a reptile so much.
Surreally blue its tail

can be dropped for
a neat escape.

Of course, it fades
with age into little more

than a snake with tiny
legs, but right now it

is at odds with a drab
landscape,a perfect work

of art darting under
the crawl space,

a sensory affront yet
altogether logical. 

Some broad-leafed bush interrupts
the path, uncut grass grown high 

and gone to seed. Bindweed 
and briars– everything is reaching.

The bridge up again, we wait. 
Half-packed, this apartment 

begins to resemble how
it looked when we moved in.  

They dug a channel to
connect the two lakes,

but is there any mark
that cannot be erased?

Which reminds me that
I’ll have to patch and paint.

After a choice, calm. Beyond 
the ropes, beyond the purview 
of the lifeguard, belonging in
the boundless.

All roads lead to Rome.
All water feels like home:

We return and return and erase
motion with movement. 

Intuition is not always rational,
but neither is it irrational,
the professor said. 

No paths or routes here,
courses set by wind 
and current, lines 
drawn and gone,

my arms reciting 
a swimmer’s geometry,
every angle opening
in time with my breath. 

By the time we got to the pool
the clouds were rolling in

but the pool deck was still
warm and left indentions

on our skin as we sat and
a little boy lost his net

in the unheated water,
the shallow end. Still

too deep for him,
he instead swung

around the handrail
with the glee of

someone who has
dropped something

and has no intention
of ever picking it up.

Getting ready to move, getting
rid of most things, finding
the little bits of life that got
tucked in old books and
stuck behind drawers.

It’s been years, years,
years since I smoked
and I’ve found five
lighters already.

And umpteen train
tickets to Creil,
Clermont-de-l’Oise.

A postcard never
sent, half in French.

Books with friends’
maiden names
inscribed.

A jolt from red ink,
written by my
grandmother some
seventeen years ago,

and a greeting card
photo she pasted
above, inside
the front cover
of a secondhand book.

A cardinal.

And wouldn’t you know,
the last time we ever spoke
that was the bird drifting
around the backyard.

Some of this I’ll keep,
the rest I’m tempted
to burn — with the
candy-colored
Bics lined up in a row.

Fate, I suppose.