​My Father's Horns


Saturday nights he'd jam the van:
the upright silver bass or the curvy
sousaphone, mouthpiece carried

in his pocket to keep it warm.
He'd pick up the guys and head
for dance halls, play big-band style

and pack the house. Back then,
the gang played standards,
some oom-pa-pas and little waltzes.

The dance floor was packed to the rafters
with suits and full circle skirts;
sometimes a pretty woman sang.

"It's getting a little dry 
and dusty up here," Jerry’d say,
and beers and whiskey sodas appeared.

My father drove home after,
half asleep, a little jazzed,
his throat choked with smoke,

The horns, their big bells silent,
settled once more in the van.
Those Saturday night beauties--

the ones he held tight, 
the ones he crooned to.
My mother—keeping time at home.





Catch and Release


Now as the ice begins its slow
spring shrinking from the lakeshore,

fishermen will drop anchor and like spiders
cast their lines, and the boys will be found, 

the two who disappeared one November 
storm ago.  When they are discovered,
 
their families might finally be released from grief,
finally free to let them go, but a different 

ache will lure them, and they will know
there is no getting beyond the pull of the shore.

And the boys—they are tired of floating 
under the water’s thick shell, tired 

of sturgeon gnawing their skin, tired of their 
thin and drifting hair, of hands grasping 

at prayers.  They’ll be glad to be found-- 
if the dead are glad of anything--

after all those months of freefall, 
the rising that always comes in spring.

-from Catch and Release, 2005, Marsh River Editions



Watermelon


Some say the sick 
crave it when they
are about to die.
Spidery flesh fills
them with longing
for floods and sun.

My mother, as she lay
dying, asked for
nothing, her breathing 
transparent and dry.
I offered a swab
of water for her

bleeding tongue, 
ice chips for mouth 
thick with fever. 
Had I touched those  
jeweled cubes to her
lips, she might have 

smiled before she 
exhaled finally, 
the hard rind of  pain 
melting, death 
pulling her into 
its final sweetness.