Epiphany, 2012

 

Light steals into the coffee shop

with sand-rimmed eyes still arguing
the route.  A plain girl is watching

their confusion, coarse cloth on top
of her nursing child, soft singing
gilding the room. The strangers stop,

stunned, as at their journey’s ending
light steals into the coffee shop.


(an Octain Refrain, for friends in the wonderful dVerse community)

La frutta *

(reading the paper placemat at Colombo’s)

Start at the heel of the boot,

at the sumptuously-named Lecce,

and run your finger around the graceful

toe, beaded with Sicilian heat.

Move slowly upwards, pausing at the knee

to genuflect at the Holy City, then on

to gaze in awe at the high-swept sinews

of the landscape leading up to Assisi.

Come around the thigh, taking time to

taste the savors of Bologna, Parma, Genoa,

circling over and round the graceful

inland swell of the northern provinces

and down, down again to glide

upon the glistening canals of

Venice, whispering softly as the

red wine disappears like a sunset.

[*dessert]

The moon is missing

She is standing at the screen door again,
crying, as she looks up into the night.
The moon is missing.

Just last week she had friends and life was good,
but now she knows better. It is cold and
the moon is missing.

On the beach, the tide is rolling in, with
Venus looking on. It’s not true that
the moon is missing

but she won’t know until she learns to see
she is beautiful, and ready. Only
the moon is missing.

Runaway

If a lineset gains so much momentum
that the operator cannot stop it,
that heavy load becomes a runaway.

Your instinct will be to grab the rope. Don’t.
If you are lucky, you will only burn
your hands as the rope races between them.

Much more likely, though, you will be carried
upwards by the rope – to be smashed into
the loading bridge, mangled by falling weights.

Should you survive this awful collision,
you will likely lose your grip on the rope
and scream back to the deck. This hurts like hell.

Learn this discipline, however unnatural:
When a line gets out of control, let go!
Don’t be a hero. Warn others. And run.

Setting goals

Every year I set goals with my therapist.
Last year, we bought him a boat.
The year before, it was his time-share in Miami.
This year, we’re sending his youngest son to college.

When I finally worked up the courage to confront him
about the inequity of this arrangement, he complimented
me on my progress and suggested we make an appointment
for next week to discuss my feelings at greater length.

Union Church

What if Jesus had been a union man,
and his twelve disciples had all been plumbers?
Or tool-and-die guys, or even
photocopier repair technicians?

Imagine the parables that might have been told
of leaking U-bends, and toner cartridges
found at the back of the supply cupboard,
right behind the post-its and motivational t-shirts.

His mother would have run the show
for sure – along with all the other stalwarts
who had paid their dues over the years.
You know the ones I mean – there’s always one or two.

In the end, the church probably would have been
better maintained, and letters and regulations
would always look just so. But you can be sure
the internal dynamics would be just as dysfunctional.

Twenty years

Whenever I see her
picture, or hear a friend
describe what she
is up to now, I can
still feel her holding me.

Whenever I see her
name in print, or I smell
the sweet perfume she wore
for me that spring, the lust
I felt still shakes my core.

Whenever I see her
in a dream I know that
my heart’s still open to
her summons, and she can
crawl inside me where- or

whenever. I see her
breath on my window, I
taste her salt. I left, yet
still after twenty years
these dry bones won’t forget.

Trinkets

(a kyrielle)

A shadow hidden at the back
of her dresser drawer caught my eye
the day the movers came. I thought:
we keep things though we don’t know why.

A hundred foreign coins, a stack
of travel documents signed by
some long-dead border guard who fought
to keep things though we don’t know why,

a broken pocket watch, a black-
and-white shot of a compound high
in India, crammed in a box
to keep things though we don’t know why.

Tracing the alligator track
around this lid, I think of my
own collections, what I just bought
to keep things though we don’t know why.

Time stands still in keepsakes. We track
our past with trinkets that defy
every explanation sought.
We keep things though we don’t know why.

*** Terms and conditions apply

*** Listen, we know everyone likes a
good deal, but good grief, we couldn’t afford
the rent on these posh New York offices,
or the mural in the executive
washroom, if we actually paid out
on this outrageous offer. So get real:
you are not eligible if you are
bald, foreign, introverted or stupid.
If you’re a chef or a plumber, no way.
Pro athletes need not apply. Same for cops.
We love hunky guys named Cole.  (Just kidding).
Actually, unless you’re a drug lord,
you are willing to bonk our CEO,
or you have a lawyer on six figures
you can lean over and kiss your tuckus.
It’s time for our massage. Have a nice day.

What won't wait

What won’t wait for you tonight? Take the car
and drive like Jehu through each stop sign far
across this sleeping town. Out of the mist
you carom down main, but draw no interest
from the wayward souls spat from Louie’s bar

too late and too far gone, their minds ajar.
No time to ask permission, or to spar
with strangers over places on a list;
     what won’t wait

is screaming at you here! Nothing can mar
such perfect clarity – the morning star
is crowning now. Now! Tonight you exist
only to be held by one tiny fist.
Leave the rest: the things we cannot plan are
     what won’t wait.