​Poor


Back when we were young and poor
we somehow scrounged enough to travel
to our dream land of Wales, where we slept
in crappy kapok bags in cheap, leaky tents
in the middle of pastures, but said someday
we’d stay in the fancy B&B down the lane
and eat in pubs. Then we’d drift off 
to sleep, lulled by the bawling of lambs 
and the smells of dung and hay 
like the drowse of poppies.
And then it lightening, and the birds 
would begin, we’d walk through the mist 
to wash, brush, eat cereal and boil 
tea on a little primus stove.

Now we stay in the best places, 
but back home tonight, thirty 
years along, as I walked the weekly 
trash out to the suburban curb,
I suddenly smelled that time, heard 
crickets and Dylan’s nightjars, 
and longed to lie down in fragrant 
grass again, and wake to birds
in the gray dawn, wet with dew, 
as if I’d just been baptized
or born.





Accidents


She wasn’t supposed to happen— 
poor-white mother, black father,
split (hit it and quit it), 
Opelika, Alabama.  
Almost in time for that other birth 
(alleged) in this snowy season, 
though cotton-bearded shepherds 
in bedsheets, bespectacled Magi, 
and plywood mangers abound.
The Assisted Living crèche 
has real sheep, goats, a mangy 
camel, even a homesick llama
to bow to the rubber baby.

An angel announced the news
(she said); unto us a social worker,
underpaid angel of a kind.
And then the long ride 
back home to Bethlehem, 
PA.  Okay,  
to Youngstown, Ohio, 
no star to guide us, but 
a GPS to bounce one off of.

However these little deities arrive,
they change everything, 
mostly lives, 
and no matter how much 
we don’t want this comfy old world 
to pass away,
it always does, 
and the new one shall always 
take us with it.





On the Bridge


She wants to walk across to the other side,
and I smile sickly, No problem.
I make it maybe a fourth of the way,
and even clinging to the railing on the “safe” side,
runners and bikers zipping by
dissolve my innards.
 
I take a photo of her, laughing, by the suicide sign:
There is hope
Make the call
 
They say it’s because you secretly want to jump.
I say they’re full of shit.
 
Cold wind even in July, white caps far below,
boats tacking to Alcatraz, prisoners that tried
to swim to shore, their bodies never found,
Great Whites stalking seals and wind surfers,
workmen hanging high overhead to paint
the famous gate red, not Golden.
 
She wants me to pour her ashes
from the middle.  Fat chance.
But maybe she should dump me here,
instead of the Sanibel surf, soon
to be back on shore, so safe.
Why not, at the end, send
me down into these cold tides
whether rising or ebbing?
 
Just another old hippie,
doing what he always did,
going with the flow.