Tag Archives: absence

Subtext

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Subtext

Unrecognized local number texting
‘Why did you change to “might come”

this weekend?’ I froze. Daydreaming
Of visiting my father on his 85th birthday.

Death’s number is always local, no
Matter how far away he seems.

And yes, he saw my mother fall,
Perforated inside, and went into the

Woods with eyes half seeing,
To the retired cop’s house for help.

And sometimes I see him there
Among the scrub oak, out

Of options, unsure, trying to lead
Death away from the house

And that was the time I came.

Higher Things

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Higher Things

Loss swells like a bruise,
inhibiting movement,

making everything that’s tender
a trial: though it’s permanent, the

loss, I mean, the swelling goes
and takes the tenderness away

even when you may want just
a little to stay. Absence, though,

can inflate like a nylon balloon
on a cool spring morning: filled

with warm emptiness absence takes you
Above it all, floats you over the impasse

that seemed impossible to cross
on foot, shifts perspective to higher

thoughts: here in this basket
of bewilderment and wonder,

you can stay with me even
a little longer than we thought.

Under the New Moon There Is A Quiet Layer of Cloud And Beneath That The Coldest Day of the Winter Turns To The Coldest Night

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Under the New Moon There Is A Quiet Layer of Cloud And Beneath That The Coldest Day of the Winter Turns To The Coldest Night

 

Any enclosed space is a temple. While we turned away
the sky came down and delivered news of the moon,

it hangs there just above the trees, a white ceiling
glowing from the light of streetlamps below, it waits

folded like a newspaper delivered but not yet read,
thicker and more important seeming than it will be

when it’s picked through and thinned out
and in some cases like my dad used to do tied in knots

and thrown in the fireplace with kindling where
burning it rises through the cloud’s cold floor

and brings news of the hidden world to the new
moon in its temple of absence

To the one missing her father inexplicably on a warm day after an ice storm

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To the one missing her father inexplicably on a warm day after an ice storm

Mid-morning snow after a night of sleet.
Ice is melting off the roofs, descending

faster than flakes can fall, but they go
only their own speed, unconcerned

with making up the distance