New Poems
Undoing
We are men, then, who make a man:
To teach to fish; to teach to love
A woman well. And if that dark horse in him
Is a ghost, then, Father, the man knows
He will die alone, with or without his own loving.
We are men, then, who do not build the house,
But who build our father's houses as he grins.
We help him know he's done right by us
By bringing up more men, passing the haunts
Of hammer and nail. Still, one must wonder
Are we men, then, who push on through dirt
And death to bury our fathers, who mend
And make our sorrows meek, even as brothers
Look elsewhere? To the ground or elsewhere?
We have to name the cause, the ghost
We are. Men, then, are made of more
Grain than dust, more muted by liquor
Than each outlasting of us. And if a man
Brings another to the table, kisses him, but
Teaches him to fish, to love a body well,
What then? Is it not the same
Of someone else's son? Can I not raise him
Like a lover is raised, teach him to build
His father's houses? It is the death I am undoing;
It is the memory of you I want you to live to see.
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Tell Me All That Isn't Lost
You wake up early one day,
hungry to witness, finally, the fullness
of one day.
It catches you by the hair.
It slithers its tongue through orchards
toward you. So that every day
you'll want to wake as early.
Nights seem darker, suddenly.
There's nothing for you
on TV. It all seems crude
next to memories of it.
The streets are either too loud or
too quiet. Apples are too hard
or too soft. And mangoes?
Extravagant bare bulbs
dangled above the garden.
Everyone begins to look young.
Old countries begin to appear
young to you. People know so little.
Yes. Proportions will return.
The size of the window alone
will startle you again. And peace?
There was no snake, no kind Other.
There was only Adam and more
Adam. And the fruit, my dear, is you.
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For My Father
My father doesn't know all the good
he's doneÑeach sweet cell in me
that splits, in time, in its reach.
He doesn't know how often I thank him
for my childhoodÑhe only hears
sorrow's easy answer to each question
as I pace these wooden rooms, remembering.
My father speaks to me in my own voice.
When I call, he makes a sound
like happiness. My father answers perfectly,
or just as I would like for him to answer.
When he can. A boy, I was not sad
by what could have followed me sadly home.
Instead, he helped teach me to love
each small pain that I found in a face:
someone else's dulled eyes. My father
taught me to imagine death, helped me
rehearse each sober step of someone else's
winterÑso that now it feels natural
to shrug off cold. To lose a little heat.
When my lover cries I cry next to him,
wondering who I am crying for.
Meanwhile, a life away, my father waits
elsewhere. I hope he knows it was him
I wanted to be, him who first lifted me,
who helped me see beyond fences.
I hope he doesn't think it hurts
when I'm bent by sorrow for us all. Instead,
let the river lead him to the source: a boy
and the man he loves, broken together in one life.
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Divorce
All night we both slept lightly in our nest
of comforters. The carpet shag our mattress:
soft polyester blendÉ soft fibrous fillingÉ
Wrapped in our cocoons, we found it thrilling
to camp at our mom's new houseÑthat changed garage.
Kerosene heater at our feet; the courage
that turned the lowest flame into the dawnÉ
If David wasn't fishing, we were gone:
to stores or malls or movies, or all three!
And mom would say she loved us equally
even as I'd sit and watch her sew.
How lovely time was, kind to pass so slow:
it took all evening, often, to believe her;
It took all weekend to let go, to leave her.
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Rock Tumbler
Mother, look. I've waited for this
all day and all night, ear pressed
to the basement door, to the motor itself,
to the stones inside which thunder.
All day and all night, my ear pressed
to the far sound of mud running over
to the stones inside, thundering
for youÑlisten, they're almost ready.
To the far sound, to mud running over
the sides of that barrel, I'm making jewels
for you. Listen. They're almost ready
to be let out, washed, set in place.
Inside this barrel, I'm making jewels.
I'm turning them over in my mouth, hoping
to be let out, bathed, set in place.
Put in your purse, dangled from your wrist.
I'm turning them over and over in my mouth:
these kisses, this heart that longs to be
put in your purse, dangled from your wrist.
Ripe with waiting and this, this:
these kisses, this heart that longs to have been
to the basement door, to the motor itself,
ripe with waiting, and this. This
mother's look. I've waited for this.
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A Brief History
The original heart had no valves,
so the Classical masters wrote limited notes
for the beats to igniteÑbefore hunting, of course.
Only then did the brave and ungodliest hands--
after poking at lives as one might a fire--
place their fingers inside instrument's bloody bell,
and by chance, or some luck, change its pitch.
As suddenly: choruses of bells, hammers, keys in locks.
Fields of garlic sweetened in the ground.
What we thought was lost or broken, we learned,
had never been given at all. Until now.
The world's women continued their work of rejoicing,
and the menÑpretending nothing had changed--
wept in the dark, afraid of what could happen.
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Poem Requiring a Small Theft
Nothing can repair their veering
now that the season has set
a cold dial to this red arc.
Not the subtle cost of happiness,
not the cold rain starting
of my first loveÑher bike rides,
her gifts hidden in the grass.
I stood at the edge of a field
afraid to enter. I stood at the edge
of a field of her, birds gleaning
then lifting from seed
without reason or wrong-
doing. It was like a kiss
how she steered away, how I ran
after, my face red with want
that last day of first school
when I thought if I let her go
there would be little else after.
And now look at me:
pressed between the pages like
--why do I bother?
The road is made of wrong turns,
the day of hours you are awake.
The rest is a dark wall
that reminds you of when
there was no wall to keep you
apart from your life. Only
star after star of death, marked car,
sea of siren and lost cause.
A girl made me say the only thing
I could not say with ease.
A girl is not a locked body
but a calculated opening
and closing, the sudden coin
beneath water. She holds her breath;
she wishes well. Bright conifer cover,
the towel laid out for the losing.
I hid in a hollow under full branches.
I thought it was anger that kept me
pacing miles of mounted grain
for the girl I loved before I let go.
The open door is a door
that wants waiting. Beneath the field,
a boy still waits for his answer.
To bring it in from the rain.
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Light Is the Least Natural Thing
It wasn't the darkness that called them
from the far room, my salt body branded
by blush and carpet burn. Think bunk bed,
think night rouge-Ñthere's nothing for you
in the cold of a boy's young need.
He doesn't know the difference.
If there is a calm to how it will be done
once his lover comes, finds him, and settles
them down to take him without heat,
it may be because of this: quiet jerk
of a boy in a shared room of childhood.
He holds his breath as light recedes.
And as for the rest of us, there is a barrier
that keeps death from finding out whose face
is which or to what final voice we'd come to
once the bags are packed, the old house burning.
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Nkonde Song
When you wake into the white room,
Don't think, loved one, of centuries of peace.
Instead, let the pigeon, his sleepy steel sheen
As he lifts and crackles, draw up his angry sword
Toward your kitchen window, and listen!
This, the cello's nearly human voice, useful and unused.
This, the music laid upon the pageÑ
Nail it to your chest and lick the nail.
Let it hang there. Twitch, then shake
Until the ink comes like blood to bruise.
In a city such as this, in a world in which
A man takes a wife and the wife takes their child
When she goes. Of all the cities in all the worldÑ
It's too early to tell, but the sound of sirens
Off the stone façade seems like a sorry gift.
The young prophets, their pockets sewn shut,
Learned in another life how to live.
All the while our brothers bait and steal,
The seams at their pockets openÑlisten. Even now
They're pulling the great horse into our harbor.
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A Briefer History
The world's women continued their work of rejoicing,
and the menÑ-pretending nothing had changedÑ-
wept in the dark, afraid of what could happen.
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