Appalachian Night


Enfolded by pure darkness
a train slips through the hills,
past the occasional litter of homes
leaking garish light.

In a kitchen window, the silhouette 
of an enormous man who thinks,
gazing at the train,
he could love anyone on board.





To the Hobo Who Flipped Me the Bird When I Waved
 

You are not Walt Whitman, 
forget your long white beard and mane, 
the way you loaf 
on the Oklahoma grass, springing up 
electrically to say that I, 
in my glittering car, 
can go fuck myself. 
 
On second thought, you are. 





Separated


This motel room, spare,
cool as a shoebox

Perfectly designed
for things that walk away






Lawn Flamingos


October. Topped with frost,
they migrate not much less
than commuters and bus drivers
flecked with gray who pass them
every morning, dreaming
of pink summers,
checking for lost plumage
in the rear view.





Milk and Eggs
 
 
Our vows are dead. In their place,
keep it small-scale. 
Use simple declarative sentences
to tell me real things.
Plain words, too.
Like "milk and eggs." Say,
"We're low on milk and eggs, 
I'll be home soon." 





First Night in a Strange House


Just divorced,
I follow my heart,
blind men bumping in the dark.





The Insomniac Wants to Curl Up Somewhere


Like a cinnamon roll curling
into its soft, sweet center.
Like the cat curling
into herself, finding
warmth, peace, knowing
there is nothing to do
but love oneself. This
is where the problem starts.





February


Crows
on every bare branch

Black Christmas trees
for when

God bestows the gift
of nothing





Locks


All those times I locked you out
after we fought like vipers.
All those hundreds of dollars
spent to keep you away.
All those glittering keys,
their little teeth bared.
Yet I address you still,
proof there is no door.





Last Visit to the Home


in the parking lot one starling
on the wire like a 
period





Kathleen


I saw a woman walking down the middle of the street,
twirling a bag of groceries. End of a summer storm.
I remember when I loved you, it was bountiful, precarious,
a little bit illegal, and the city shone.






Later On Our Wedding Night
Two Silences in the House


Like a Shaker bowl,
the house contains the silence
of belief and
like a Navajo basket
containing none of our business
it is keeping quiet,
deathly still, in fact,
about God’s plans.






The Old Guys at the Pantry, Breakfast, 5 A.M.
 
                                                San Mateo, CA
 
It started as a spot,
a small one, 
on his leg. 
Dennis,
with that van,
those crooked teeth,
that grin.
Nothing lasts, 
not heat pumps, 
toilets, 
HVAC units, 
fishing boats, 
erections,
hot coffee 
or first wives,
nothing but 
the fog 
rolling in
from Half Moon Bay
and the human 
need 
to burn it 
off with words:
muffler,
toast,
butter, 
rip-off,
mother,
love,
Colin Fucking Kaepernick,
marlin,
Monday,
hard.





The Copper Pot


The pot dwarfed the stove. My ex's brother in law
said his grandfather banged it out 
ninety years ago

in Peru, a copper alloy, the old man's name scrawled 
on the side. The pot
dwarfed the freaking stove, 

enough seafood chowder to feed Pizarro's army, 
or in any case Eduardo, 
his wife, myself, my ex's 

sister, Matt her boyfriend (replacing my buddy Ben), 
my daughter and her cousin,
a cilantro-heavy dish,

a burbling green sea of shrimp and octopus
and crab and corn and onions,
and keep the potatoes coming,

whose name in Spanish meant
Bringing Back the Dead, 
though I preferred to think of it as Bringing a Little Peace

to Various Warring Factions, 
Some No Longer Related.
The pot dwarfed the stove, shaped as it was

like those plastic dishes 
they strap on wounded dogs, 
its maw a chasm in the Andes, out of which they crawled, 

the Incas or their forebears, 
the first in those high reaches
to fashion spears of copper, when my ex's family

was young and speared each other 
only, long before 
skewering hapless gringos became the favorite sport

of the women, long before 
the family drifted down 
to Lima by the sea, where a young man grabbed a hammer

and made pots of copper 
to fill with yummy critters. The pot dwarfed the stove, 
its dents and dings and scratches

a kind of cuneiform 
speaking of bowed heads 
and the kind of soulful grunting 

predating any language--
the earliest sort of prayer, shut up,
let’s eat, amen.