Not That You Asked

No one is asking for another poem. When I walk

the neighborhood, no one stops me to ask

why I haven’t shared with them my latest thoughts

on death, or dogs, or the way a flatworm swordfights

with his penis. There are no petitions, no Kickstarter

fundraisers, not even a peaceful march with placards

and animated crowds asking in a shout, “When

do we want it?” Anyway, the answer would be,

I’m quite certain, “We’re good. No hurry, dude. Whatever

works for you.” It’s okay. I get it. Poets are like

that lady in your office who always wants to tell people

her dreams:  “There is no word in the world

to describe the color of the shirt Ryan Reynolds

took off before he kissed me. But then I realized

it was my father I was kissing! Don’t even get me

started on what that might mean.” And no one does

get her started, but that doesn’t stop her. Point taken.

I won’t be saddling any of you with how it felt

this afternoon to find, as I was boxing up my old books

from college, sandwiched between the pages

of Herbert’s “Bitter-sweet” and “Love,” between

“sour-sweet days” and “usurping lust,” a condom

wrapped in a square of red foil, as yet unope’d.

(from Pembroke Magazine, 2016)

Mannequin

The mannequin in the window is reaching

dramatically skyward, where maybe a better life

or better pantsuit is out there somewhere

hanging in someone else’s closet. It reminds

him of the way his mother used to lift him up

as high as she could reach, and then he would run

a feather duster through the dead spiders until

she tired and took him outside for some fresh air

while she smoked a Kool menthol and told him

what all the neighbors were worth. And when she

gave him a sip of her RC Cola it was clear that nothing

beyond that porch was worth knowing about. Past

the store with the mannequin is a dog wash

and a juice bar and the place that does his shirts

with light starch and a hint of mint at the collar.

(from The Timberline Review, 2015)

Isfahan, ca. 1600

The weft and warp

are wool, wool and silk

form the foundation

and pile, steeped first

in indigo, buckthorn

berries, saffron and

madder, larkspur. See

where the weaver

has plaited into

the odd Persian knot—

among the three hundred

every hour, eight

hours a day for eight

hundred days—a strand

of her own ebony hair,

how it still reflects

the sun, these centuries

later, as she must

have known it would,

must have hoped

you would imagine

her here, today, combing

each new row into

place, her eyes lifting

for a brief, capricious

look above the loom.

(from Avatar Review, 2015)

Fairy Tales

When you get them talking, you will hear

fantastical things, like how your mother’s

car-dealer boss forced her to sit on his lap,

or how your father spent two years of his life

breaking East German radio code. How

can you not have known this about them,

their lives before you that had nothing to do

with you, these bright Kandinsky spatters

of experience that jar against the placid washes

of their lives now, set in the gentle landscapes

you have peopled with them, the way you once

set plates around a miniature white tea table—

for Barbie, tarted-up to the nines, and GI Joe,

rakish beret tipped back, already three cups in.

(from Avatar Review, 2015)

Dead to the World

When the news comes the way

it sometimes does in a dream

in which you are eating your fingers,

smacking your lips at their deep-

fried goodness but all the while

knowing there is something

not quite right about this scenario,

but the wrongness is not enough yet

to overcome your feeding frenzy

until you get all the way to the third

finger on your second hand and begin

to notice a persistent tapping

in the background as though a tiny

metronome were keeping the beat

for a tiny mouse ballerina who lives

and practices her pas de chats

in the suburbs of Medulla, Oblongata—

but until then you are dead to the world,

not unlike yesterday, when your co-workers

emerged from their cubicles en masse

to huddle around the big screen

in the break room.  From your chair

you could see some of them lift

a hand to cover their mouths, others

shake their heads and slump into chairs,

and when you joined them for a closer

look, no one spoke to you except

in half-muffled sobs, their red eyes

looking right through you, so this,

you guessed, this had nothing to do

with another birthday party where

there would be cake and singing

to while away the rest of the work day,

no, this must be something new

they were finding out about the world—

at their ages, too!—something flashing

in their eyes, worming into their ears,

something that would briefly drown

out the sound of the dozen clocks

in the empty office, a ticking
which seems to you the only sound.

(from Writing Tomorrow, 2014)

Untouched

Actual touch—real contact—is not possible. 
           --Anthony Doerr

I tap his left fist
to reveal the black pawn.
He will best me again
at the game I taught him.

On our walks through the trees,
we learned to identify bracket
fungi, those brilliant polychrome
hints of heart rot.

In Yellowstone, once, we watched
ravens feinting between
distracted wolves, stealing pink
strands of elk viscera.

Now I loosen the four-point
restraints as he sighs
into sleep, smiling at something
he keeps to himself.

(from Right Hand Pointing, 2014)

It Kills Me

The day I saw Salinger at the general store
in Cornish, New Hampshire was also the day
before the night of the "super moon" when
the moon came closest to the earth and you
said you could feel it pulling on your womb,
not in a painful way, but more a kind of mutual
attraction, a personal galactic tide that you found
rather comforting and grand, really, because
here was this celestial orb reaching out to you
in a way that said, we're in this together, you and I--
and then you stopped and gave me that look
that meant you knew you had gone beyond
the pale with that phony moon and womb stuff
and had better just shut the hell up and pretend
to be interested in my story about J. D., Jerome
David, counting out apples into a sack and then
asking me, out of the blue, if I, too, was a goddamn
Hubbardtson Nonesuch man.

(from A Narrow Fellow, 2014)

In Re:

It’s true the cat shredded the hem of your silk skirt (jaune) while you were away.  And, optimally, the heart leaf philodendron would have been kept minimally moist. I freely admit to seeing the red Final Notice letter arrive for your Stairmaster 7000PT with bottle holder, accessory tray, and reading rack,

and yet, did nothing.  You may find it most grievous to learn, when you review the security tapes, that I spent an entire day naked, taking pains to sit most thoroughly on the Wassily chair with the (once) pristine white fabric.  Mea maxima culpa.

Perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive me.  You may even text to tell me you understand my childish tantrums, that they appear as number four on Dr. Phil’s list of symptoms of a man’s seven-year itch, and that you are ready to foreground my return with some pre-negotiation problem-framing via Skype.  Sadly, it may be that I am unable to take your call—out of range, as it happens, ragtop down, needle buried, well south of my last known position.

(from Chicago Quarterly Review, 2014)

Saturdays

I’ll just go home now.  I have seen

the post-workout women in their tights

sweating together over green smoothies.

I have smiled at three young sisters

waiting for hairdos on a row of pink

plastic chairs.  So, it’s time.  Oh, and when

the gaggle of guys from the Mini Cooper

club stopped at Starbucks before mounting up

and hitting the road like horses and jockeys

in their silks—I knew I should be going.

I would almost like to be there when

the parallel lines of perspective near

nil and the whole lot lift off like a spinning

carousel into a blue summer sky as I

shout something true about how beautiful they

all are, and stand there wet-faced and waving.

But no.  Best to be gone before it comes to that.

(from drafthorse, 2014)

Do Over

Laugh like the demons
gone huffing into the sea.

Taste the final fig
before it withers, the second
wine at Cana.

And when Lazarus
comes out at last, by god,
you boys pick up Mary M.
and take it on the lam.

(from drafthorse, 2014