Monthly Archives: March 2020

To the tune of a song not yet written

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To the tune of a song not yet written

I dropped my name in an empty star
the risers sagging with the rot of time

Found a hole in the ground but the sign says climb
Dad where did you go Son I’ve not gone far

By the streaky window with hands of a child
Drew a shape through my breath that I called Forever

Drew down the wind my heart was a fever
My lover woke me with the hands of a weaver

Mom where did you go Son I knew you were clever
Now the morning’s come now the air is mild

Son the house of your life is balm for pain
And your children ride the curve of the river

Son where did you go there’s news to deliver
And the roof does not explain the rain

The plague spring

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The plague spring

1.
Spring blooms with empty streets.
Chain-links sprout and spread overnight

and flower with heavy locks on
the fences around basketball courts.

A few people drift by the closed library
like pollen, moved by invisible laws.

The sun buckles and stalls.
It’s the spring of closed doors.

2.
We wait for something unexpected
that would signal the expected’s return.

Down the street a car sneezes and drives
off like it’s allergic to us.The pileated

woodpecker swoops in long arcs
from leafless tree to leafless tree

like he is sewing up a wound. When
his red crest twitches as he tightens

the thread, will there be pain?

3.
There’s a sound everywhere this sunny day,

a faucet in the world being turned off. We huddle
in the quiet, afraid of being alone.

The quiet of the afraid is worse than the quiet
of the dead, who are not around to hear it.

Before peonies, late March 2020

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Before peonies, late March 2020

One day you walk out your door, unhappy.
Your eyes roll with anger, looking anywhere

for relief, but find none. The agitation dislodges
a lash which falls, unmissed like a happy moment

not worth your time, to the earth by the walkway.
A season passes. The last week of March

you walk out your door, unhappy, head down,
your unhappiness fortunately angled so you see them.

They rise like something going backwards in time.
Like how memories grow. Curious, inevitable.

Snakes rolled over by countless tires, crumpled
yet rising to unheard music, enchanted maybe.

Each morning they elongate, uncrinkle, dance
slowly toward the sun. The crumpled snakeheads

fill with — what? — the moment you discarded
and the countless moments it created in turn,

filling like a reverse venom, crowding out the poison
tooth of regret, bursting open, these are all the

effects of your happiness, countless effects of being,
weightless and regal, dancing in the slightest breeze

or is that you dancing, crushed snake of a soul,
forgiving the wheel and opening to the sun?

Sheltering at home

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Sheltering at home

The days of the week want to help me
But their name tags have faded

The house sighs for us so we can lie
Still enough to pretend we’re dreaming

Up on the hill the school closes its mouth
For spring and birds in the backyard

Sound the same though I seem to finally
Know what they’re saying. We’ll survive

Will you will you