For My Daughter, When She's Scared

You weren't

even one when
the virus sent you
to intensive care.
I see you still.
Your lungs suck air.
Your skin pulls thin
against your ribs.
Tubes writhe into
your soft small body.
You roar in what
I thought was pain
but now think was
a demand that you 
continue. Remember: 
There is a lion in you.
Roar.

We Always Leave

Sometimes we speed beyond our listening face

to friends, to poems, to Katmandu cafes

that disappear when we must speak again.

At night we trek beyond our sheets through skin,

beyond our skin through dreams, then wake to face

a Monday morning flight that we will speak

of when we meet in spring. Till then we live

our lives: we look up and it's Thursday night

again, again we leave for Katmandu,

return before we're missed, and if we're not,

return. And then it's Thursday night again.

One day we really are in Katmandu

with friends, beguiled like the old Chinese —

so butterfly or man we never left.

Rainbow

Desire colors

all perception.

Seeing rainbow,

we think gold.

Mist just is, it

eases anywhere,

accepts the light

that's given.

Whether sun

refracts to you

undone depends

on where you stand.

We're mostly water,

the error's thinking

ourselves other,

hence all the gold

that's missed.

Where I'm From

Where was I before I

was born? my child asked.

I didn't know. "Nowhere"

was no answer, not since

the time I collapsed

in the diner and whatever I

I essentially am went

walkabout while the I

that is my body stayed

slumped with the paramedics.

Another answer I don't know

is why I will grow old and die.

But say I say "evolution" or

"it's God's plan," and then

you ask me why we evolved

or were planned that way.

Even if I answer, can't you see

how sooner or later all whys

arrive at "I don't know"?

So, now, my friend when

you so innocently ask,

"Where are you from?"

forgive me if I don't know

which "from" I should

begin with, or even --

given that my cells

are dividing as we speak --

which "I."

Bashert

All molecules metasticize,

elide and slide so why

not passions or the words

that try to hold them like

the one bashert she breathed,

bashert which means "I am

the one you've waited for"

but just a shake and the letters

make the bars this ending

holds you in or if you're feeling

self-indulgent twist into her stab

which, you must admit, was clarity

you didn't want to hear, not when

your rash bet that this contraption

could soar so high so soon crashed

fast and passed into conviction

that sans another all you'll be

is trash the waves will wash away

the waves the waves the universe moves

in waves you wave all wave she waves

you wave farewell farewell farewell

as all your particles come to rest

like wave-tossed bathers often do

upon the sand that serves as berth

while all the molecules that make

the universe make love make you

make her make bashert make

breaths for now just breaths

for now for now for now just

breaths.

Adam and Eve

Our five hundred fingers splash

around this garden of skin this

figure-eight-shaped now alight

and flicker take flight and tickle

or teasing knead along this wet

they waltz like water nymphs

dive in fly out then pull us fully in

there are so many lives of us

so many so one so water so rain

so like warm rain we fall into

each other and make an ocean

of atoms across the evening.

Unhitched

I am standing at the entrance to Arches

with my thumb out. After two weeks hitching

across Southern Utah I am gritty with dust

that was rocks that was ancient sea floors.

What stops is an old-school Bug loaded with

treasure: traveling bags leaking bright fabrics,

scuffed brass floor lamps, a sweating cooler

stuffed with juice and ice and turkey sandwiches,

drifts of children's books, a ceramic Buddha head

as big as my head, a tassled gray comforter,

and, in the back seat, a boy. He's blond like me.

I shove my pack in, fold myself onto the edge

of the seat, and offer praise. She's windblown,

luminous, and lean – what I like in a landscape.

"We're moving," she explains. "Not that we're

going anywhere, really. How about you?"

I thought life was taking me somewhere

but twenty years later I've come unhitched.

I think about her. How some people

let you in when there's no room. How

some people are happy with enough.

New Year's Eve

You resolve

to live

with no

purpose

save

writing

your name

on the lake

and sharing

sweet peaches

and stories

oh with

anybody

and listening

to kids

and forgiving

yourself your

imperfect

forgiving.

You reject

other metrics

and promise

nothing

great --

only tiny

pointillist

gestures

done greatly.