About Friends

Yes the end
looks like a pawpaw tree tiny
flowers that smell like death. Yes
the end is a hatch of mayflies
coating the bridge. Yes the end has
fingers made of iron
touching everything.
Yes the end
swims upstream to the beginning.
No the end
has no voice. No the end is all heart.
No the end is Alaska. No
I have everything. Yes
the end has no reason and never comes.

The Comfort of the Unforeseen

Worry
is for the foreseen;
that which we can imagine.

The unforeseen,
the unimagined,
is never worried for.

The uninvited is received
by our most natural reaction.

A credit and a testament
unto ourselves.

When I Worked for the Peace Corps

More important to carry than lift - my
hands full of pounds, Libya on my
shoulder. I'm holding up the dusk.
A five hundred mile shuffle. There's a giraffe
carved into that mountain, and a shaman
or a guy with a stick.
Rome was here.
One
legion held this place for hundreds of
years. I didn't see Leptis Magna.
There was a lot of history.

But mostly it was hot and the locals
stood around watching us dig their well
(which they let sand fill in two weeks) with
no electricity no women and date wine
with fucking chunks in it. Eight
weeks in the Maghreb. Two weeks in
hospital with fever. Most everything stolen.
Every kid wants your watch and pen.

Makes you wonder how
Rome did it. That's the thing
about history. The further in time the
longer from possible.

It is natural that we should rebel in this way

My socks are folded I enjoy everyone to come
have tea at our overlook the pond
is stocked with fishes. Soon the sun will
strike over us we will draw the awning put on
the new sunglasses I gave you.
Yesterday the big turtle dove into the
water from that log with new branches
growing from it
the dragonflies startled him look there
a big one lands near you.
Hold out your finger it may land and we will have
nine years of good luck my father's workers will bring
much grain and my brother will come home and
find a wife. I do not hear from my brother but one
letter he sent my mother kept under the
bed I found it last spring it said. He said he lives
under dirt and rests a knife under his
thigh when he sleeps now quiet the
sun is falling over the house and the trees.
Do you hear the birds get quiet?

I wish every day was this having tea with
you the
airplanes are so nice they will wait
until we finish and there is the turtle
again do you see him, there, there,

stretching towards the bank with
his mouth open.

Things are looking up

Most of us are lobsters (at
the bottom with big
claws). The swift goes
over us. We are giants
on the bottom. We eat what
lobsters eat. Algae, slow fish,
soft rocks, the bottoms of
ships? We scuttle. Lay millions
of nameless eggs. But enough
about us - I smell a fish
in the bottom of a wire cage.

learning to swim

the old testament
we have gathered two of everything,
like noah:

two boxes of cranium
two sets of knives
two sets of pans
two sofas
two tents

we have gathered enough for
two homes

and continue to do so, maintaining
our separate quarters three doors
down

and an eternity away


and the new
we have gathered in two's
like noah, with an ark to save
everything

but ourselves

first steps of spring

i took out some garbage this evening
before bed it was cold & clear
the fingernail shaped moon
lay on its back
stars twinkled &
the light of an airplane
blinked

i tried to find the dipper
or maybe even orion's belt
but i have to be twelve
& wearing a boyscout
kerchief to remember where
those are located

i looked up to the sky
& found myself talking
out loud to my father

telling him i missed him
& wondering if he saw
the pretty sky

& it was
the moon shone
& the stars twinkled
& the airplane's light blinked

If there were

Weather today - the
dog nipped the front door
demanding a walk
on hardened snow. Just
twenty degrees. Down
four houses to the park around the
frozen baseball field smelling
everything. Old goose tracks distorted
by days of sunlight on ice.
Yellow piss on the cold
trees. The clouds of
breath cool and descend.
Today is the only day
there is.

We come back into the house.
Come back into the house.
Television reminds me that
Arizona exists
somewhere.
Somewhere the air is
warm and
crowds with
terrible people
sharing their names.
Remember:
here your name
floats away
over parking lots.
Here you speak and
your voice settles
as it cools.

Your name will
grow into springtime
nettles
along the steep
bank.

how cookies crumble

its cold
its snowing

i've got a cold
i feel horrible

i have a job interview today

can it get any better

Weather Report

Today is rainy and cold
yesterday sunny and warm
on the roadside this morning, daffodils blooming, yes blooming while I watched
Gloomy as it seems now
those blooms, those crystal sharp peaks of yesterday's sun rays
lead to this thought
perhaps the SSRI bottle can remain in the Winter cupboard,
untouched one more day

memory in cloth

his clothes are
washed & folded
neatly in a washbasket
by the green chair
in the living room

i stop & look at them
they are pajama bottoms
& a colts t-shirt
both grey

white athletic tube
socks with his
name sharpied
on the bottom

the clothes, the
last he wore,
are laundred &
folded & soon
will be put into
a bag

& taken to
goodwill

i stare at
the clothes,
folded & clean
& miss him for
second

i lean down,
touch the corner of
a t-shirt,

smile & walk

away

Where I'll be when I'm gone.

North Carolina. Or the
Negev. Giant Sudan. Anywhere
Sudan. La Paz. Hopefully not Sacramento.
Baalbek. Central Russia.
St. Helena.
Rockall. An Ox-Bow lake.
Northern Somalia. Eritrea.
Iowa. I hope to God it's Iowa.
Or the Negev. Someplace
small, unburdened by rivers. Someplace
Smaller and smaller where I'm gone.

Social Creatures

I need little,
from all
but a minority,
and from them
much.