Poetry

The Analects declare it is best
To withdraw from one’s generation.
Next, to withdraw to another land.

Give us an incisor, and we’ll rationally conjecture
an entire prehistoric head, to the glint
in its eyes and in the light along its scaled skin
—but first, we need that tooth, that seed

Where there were only dirt and needles,
I laid a floor of hardwood and shellac.
I plaited walls into the forest.

Last century we took a lot of shots
Of what we did, framing things for Look and Life
So we could see us and our lot

A misty rain, no wind from the west, 
Clouds close as smoke to the ground, 
                                                      spring’s fire, like a first love, now gone to ash, 
The lives of angels beginning to end like porch lights turned...

Have you noticed the horses galloping past us?
Perhaps they are horses with no riders at all.
Perhaps they are riders who have turned into horses.

There was the knife and the broken syringe
then the needle in my hand, the Tru-Cut
followed by the night-blue suture.

On seeing you that second time last night,
Pat Benatar a disembodied blare
amidst a night yet ravenous for dares,
I thought I’d talk to you, to ask you why

To bring the night sky to life,
                                          strike a wrong note from time to time.