Crossing
Whenever your thoughts
become too ponderous,
ponder us.
Ponder how we met, how well
we fit, like a winsome
two-letter word. Like “us.”
Only a “t” stood between us then
(before “u,” yes, after “s”),
rigid as a crossing guard
telling us to wait.
But seeing nothing coming,
we learned to slip below
its perfectly outstretched arms
and cross together.
How empowering it was to look back
from the other side and see
the ponderous thoughts
still collecting there, restlessly
waiting for permission
to find their own forms.
And to think, thankfully:
that’s not us anymore.
Shadow Boxers
Here again, that strange time of day
when certain shadows of the past
meet less-then-certain shadows
of the future, unwitting partners
sparring dimly by interior light.
Our compulsions come out
to watch, with their vicarious desires,
before the shadows finally recede
again, into another day – or is it night?
The two always circling each other
like anxious prizefighters,
looking for a way in.
Reminding us, if only briefly,
what we started with.
What we have left: a lifetime.
The Real News
At 7:32 this morning
existence stopped,
without warning.
The clocks were all stilled,
muses stopped whispering
the sirens were silenced.
Morning ended, forever.
At 7:47, existence resumed.
Clock-hands began turning,
an orchestra could be heard
tuning to an oboe’s “A”
and we all breathed easy,
telling each other
it hadn’t actually happened.
In this way, we kept
the real news to ourselves
once again.
In the Leaving
(Ode to Jim Beam)
The last time I had you inside me
was ten years ago today,
when I decided to ignore tomorrow’s
knocking – as familiar by then
as drain-water flushing through wall-pipes,
whisking away all resolve and doubt.
You’ve come knocking since,
to remind me – how lovely the late light
looked through your golden-brown
mist, how the cool cavern-y air tasted,
soaked with your sweet heady vapor.
What it did to the soul.
We can celebrate together if you wish,
though I will not welcome you in,
knowing now who you are, what you did.
But we may reminisce from a distance
just the same, recalling what we went through
together, and what it cost.
Then I will again find life in the leaving
and celebrate what remains.
Gone
“They couldn’t find anything,” my father says,
holding me with his hard blue eyes.
“They couldn’t?” I reply, not sure what he’s saying.
“They looked. The surgeon said it was all gone.”
“Well, no, sweetheart,” my stepmother interjects,
reaching for his hand in this sixth-floor hospital room.
But when she leaves his bedside several minutes later,
and we’re alone, he says it again:
“They couldn’t find anything.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“They looked. The surgeon said there was nothing there.
It was gone, just like that,” he adds, as if a miracle has taken place
at Sloan-Kettering, not a lobectomy.
He says it father to son, knowing
that I will not contradict him.
This is the third operation. He has come back from each
a little different. Now he stares at me like clear blue sky,
wanting only for me to nod before she returns.
I nod.
These are phenomenal.
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