Poem for Thursday, February 26, 2015

At the Spillway

The fish have been reduced to flashes
of silver streaking beneath the current, and light
has never seemed so slow.

We set down our rods for a moment to
bait the hooks. You opt for an artificial jig,
fluorescent like sin. Now is a good a time as any
to say that love cannot be articulated.

Instead, I slip thread through a new hook,
banking off a metaphor while the sun
exploits my forehead. Before we recast,
I am branded a child of this earth. Consider this:

our lives, the tepid water spilling over

the edge.

Poem for Monday, February 23, 2015

You Can Find My Secrets

Like aspen in winter, stripped naked
of my gold, my limbs extend upward;
I am ready

to surrender to you, if only for a season.
We are not meant to know some things;
I will change

this. You can find my secrets scattered
beneath me, snow-tinged. Sift through
them carefully,

as you would with undiscovered photos
excavated from an attic, bleak with no
insulation.

Please tell me I am not like that
inside.

Poem for Saturday, November 15, 2014

Straggler

The day after she buried him, a layer of ice
had formed, covering his plot and creeping
up the granite to preserve the epitaph:

                        No Blood on His Hands.

Fifty years earlier, they were sweating on their
South Pacific honeymoon. She remembered
lying on the shore. He fed her June plums
picked from the vine.

But now, the cruelty of winter was apparent:
too cold for fruit, flowers, or birds except
a single flock-shunned goose, flailing
through a merciless gray sky

                       in fear and disbelief.

Poem for Friday, October 17, 2014

Spilling Wine in Your Kitchen

When the wine leapt from the bottle
into the air, your shriek became
a quartet of violins.

A hurricane of red had smashed against
the side of the refrigerator, the kitchen
wall, our newly washed skin.

Confronted with this aftermath, we began
our work, scrubbing each blemish
with paper towels and water.

But somewhere, a single drop remains
inconspicuous, embedded like history
in white gypsum, reminding us

that time is not meant to erase
                                                everything,
                                                anything.

Poem for Saturday, September 27, 2014

Deluge

I.

A white car struggles forward with sweet
caution, then a red, like infant herring testing
the Atlantic currents. Where are you
going in this weather, I want to ask them all.
A deluge like this has been known to drown
lesser things; even the highest trees are
only so high

II.

when the wind is this vicious, ready to strip
us of our skin, do not go outside except
for bread or for love. Do you need anything
else to keep you alive, I want to ask
them

III.

the advantage that rain has over us is simple:
we cannot detect from where exactly it is
falling. All clouds converge into a new concept:
gray. A histrionic pause, then thunder is born,
then the drops speed up, then we are struck
with daggers

IV.

when we were children, we played in puddles
that collected where the earth sloped down,
where the contours of its surface gave in to our
weight. This is how we learned our world is
askew

V.

the cars slice through the post-storm thinness.
Somewhere in the night, a man is pulling up to a
house and turning off the headlights that kept him
alive. Somewhere in the night, a new river has
emerged; that which it takes was never ours
to decide.

Poem for Sunday, August 24, 2014

The Consequences of a Falling Sky

I.

The oceans reflect nothing; everything will shrink in the cold.

All the ships drift towards Lethe; everyone will grow thirsty.

II.

Molecules scatter like frightened sheep; our blood will turn thin.

The sun is not as bright as we thought; the wind will not relent.

III.

Language becomes paralanguage; we will kiss our words goodbye.

Poetry becomes our last concern; we will kiss our words goodbye.

IV.

The storms inundate the fields; all the earth will be a single field.

Our bodies are drenched; we will droop like naked stalks of wheat.

V.

When everything succumbs to darkness, my reaction will be to

extend my hand in your direction, to wait for the slightest brush

of your fingers.

Poem for Sunday, August 17, 2014

The Inventor

One night in August, I retreated inside from the thin summer air
and encountered an old man already three or four drinks deep.
We secured a table for a friendly game of eight-ball. The dim
bar light above betrayed the scratches on the green felt, and I
don't remember who broke or who hit what first, and I don't
remember much about physics and not enough about geometry,
and that's really all the game is.

A couple games later, and I don't remember who won. We cut
through the lobby and went outside for a reprieve from the
ruckus, the mangled music, the dead skin floating everywhere in
the air. There was enough light to see the streets and the people,
engrossed in dozens of conversations, trickling by. But the
silhouette of the mountains had long been veiled behind the still
darkness to which this town is accustomed.

The old man knelt on the sidewalk and began to roll a cigarette.
He mentioned that he lived down the canyon, that he was
designing some jet pack and had been a small-time inventor
for several years. He mentioned that he'd been an alcoholic for
even longer and had fought in a war. He lit the cigarette. His
weary lungs accepted the first trace of smoke before it plumed
upward towards the indifferent sky.

Which war, I asked.

He said it didn't matter. He said life itself is the greatest war
any of us has ever fought.