We Tell the Kids

I take our daughter to her lesson.

She takes our son to soccer.

We come home

and have a snack.

We tell the kids.

Our son shouts at us.

Our daughter bows her head.

We all weep for an hour.

Our daughter goes out to rake leaves.

Our son starts watching cartoons.

I take our son to a party

She takes our daughter

to another lesson.

A chain of endings ends.

Another one begins.

There's a Thread

Pick up the end

of the golden thread.

It begins anywhere --

a church, these plums,

a drop of blood, the rain

-- and leads on through

the universe out to the

other end of yourself.

If you lose the thread

for a time in the dark,

be gentle. You'll find

it again. You can always

start here.

Solstice

Oh, thou exuberant sun
with your arms flung wide 
to me all day in welcome.
I ease into your warmth,
finally ready to set down 
these dark things I carry. 
Ready to be light.




(Happy birthday.)

The Wrapper

There's something holy wrapped

in nothing: The least bit of litter

that blows by your shoes

tells a story as deep as humanity.

The physicist who crossed the street,

the one who ate the candy bar

and dropped the wrapper,

had stopped with the thought

that all we are is lifeless quarks and

space. We're nearly nothing

and still we're somehow holy.

She stood there lost and grinning,

wholly rapt.

Parent-Teacher Conferences are Easy, Poetry is Hard

Most days, just showing up 
is enough. In fact, entire 
lives can be spent that way, 
gliding down tracks that 
others made and will praise 
you for following.


There's no reward in poetry.
It's hard each time. I start 
with nothing, one thin syllable, 
perhaps, then try to ride it into 
hurt, or joy, or all that can be 
holy in the ordinary. 


You have to commit to the absurd. 
Get up early. Do the work. Seek.
Lest you go to sleep for years.

Friends Until

Friends is the best she can do
until her head, her beautiful
conflicted head, wakes up to 
know -- not completely, just
enough -- what her heart, her
ravenous heart, demands.*




*Can you spot the hidden message?

There is No Escape Velocity

Your face 
has gravity.
I burned 
like a meteor
and cracked 
to atoms 
on impact. 
Now, there's
little to hint 
I existed.
Just one 
tiny scar 
that only shows
when your face
forgets itself.

I and Thou and Galaxies

Things aren't what we thought
they were. Again. Experts now say 
galactic distances accelerate.
They don't relax. This means 
there's more than one universe. 
Hell if I understand. I just sit here 
on a Sunday morning drinking coffee 
and missing you. Of course there's 
more than one universe. You and I 
made one. Until we got so hungry 
for each other's light we fled each other faster.

Fuck Mary Oliver's Poem 'The Journey'

Days like today,
after seeing you 
after not seeing you 
so long and the way 
you tasted still 
a pastille
on my tongue,
I don't want to save
my own life. 
I am tired
and I want someone
to save it for me.
You, goddammit.

Note Left on the Box of Your Things

I've removed your texts

from my phone. Remember

the one about "textual healing"?

Ha. I've deleted the pictures:

us in the funny glasses, you

windblown on the ferry, me

at the end of a long run.

We are unfriends, unfavorites.

I threw away the travel mug,

the one that said "Let's Merry."

Gone, too, the flirty postcard

you sent from Lahaina, warming

my fridge since Christmas.

Delete, delete, delete, delete.

Everything's here: toothbrush,

slacks, the jacket you wore

to the symphony, the T-shirts

you took off, the espresso maker.

So much has been removed

I'm not sure who this note is for.

There must be some connection

I can't see I can't delete.

Cafe Racer

So many ways we pray. Someone taped pictures
to the coffee-shop window. Of Drew singing.
There's a note from a girlfriend. And notes 
from strangers. The glasses of red wine 
on the sidewalk are still half-full. Tea lights 
gather drizzle this morning, two days after. 
A woman drives up and leaves a bouquet 
for five people I didn't know I loved.
Till now.