poem a day #6 (happy halloween!)

RISEN

It hasn't been more than two
or three minutes since I collapsed--
one hand to my neck trying
to stop all that blood and
the other reaching for the door.

And now I can almost hear
you telling me
there are things more delicious than brains
brains
and I wish I could believe
you but

I'm sorry

Were you saying something let me in

please

poem a day #5

THINNING

You are on a balcony, you say
over the phone, and it has been almost a year
since I have heard your voice so
its cadence, the path it used to frequent is over-
grown with bramble and brier and
is snagged and tugged out of shape.
I wish

I could say I had kept it clear. That,
in remembering, it could dance, freely,
down. But that gardening demands
four hands and have only two, too
few. Again, and it is easier: Such
are the fruits of my labor,
such is the mercy of time, of pruning:

How the heading-back shapes the bush.

poem a day #4

ON SEEING A DRAWING OF CONJOINED TWINS

Wondering now
if they should be called "twins,"
for though there are two
heads and two brains, and
four arms, their faces
face each others; always
will they have one with whom to speak, never
will they sleep alone, unloved.

Their rib cages like many
parentheses, transposed. And
I could never live without you
and there is no word
for a life without loneliness,
I will never need a shadow
for you are with me. Our two
feet holding us up,

another foot, useless,
hanging like a tail.

poem a day #3

PASSENGER

The small town where we stopped
for one night years ago runs
in reverse now that I am driving the other way.
I think about
stopping, the grapes
on ice beside me, for a few minutes.
I will never pass this place again.
And it's past. And the night we walked barefoot
for a pizza, past.

I am mist, I am
his hair in your fingers, hers,
I am the sun on your face in that memory:
I am past.
I am passing.

Also, I'm writing this on the work computer and mine is (again!) iffy. Since tomorrow is my day off it might not be until Thursday when I will resume.

poem a day #2

MANOS RISING

I'm trying to find the word
for the kind of desperation no one wants:
It should have Germanic roots,
the kind that wedge themselves
between rocks and the black earth
where no light will ever reach, three
syllables or more and ending
on a soft stress
because it wears you out
to speak it.
But all I can think of is
time remembers meaningless gestures and
your goodness will not be forgotten
while I am still alive.
And I regret putting them in the
situation, making them
suffer so.

poem a day #1

I THOUGHT I SAW AN ANTEATER

Driving in the dark
I thought I saw an anteater
in the dusk my headlights made.
Its snout drooping to the
macadam, its four paws ant-
rich, nimble. And closer
it was a man with both arms
out, a baggy coat, no legs.
And closer still it was one
deer then two; each watching
my car as I swerved into the other lane,
wary of the way they had transformed,
wary of the way they are
so often willing to risk their lives.


Poem a day for a while. You know you want to do it too. :)