Poetry

Not that you ever are. The small, rough dogs lie at your feet or warm your belly.

It’s hard for
the master
sharpener after
all that work
to have the shaft
taken for the point.

You can oversell
the sea, say, or
the way we miss

I don’t quite know how it occurred
that this great fish has appeared
almost fully formed, it seemed
to crowd out all else in my aquarium

Everything outside my house
is my teacher

One still morning in a high, hushed village
on that green island of cypress and pine,
sun-beat oak and rock, from a rooftop whose
loose tiles dislodge from my careless steps

I’ve fluttered around the edge of cliques,
pressed my beak against the bars,
not in envy, but out of interest,
and for the little warm
glow they give off. 

My broker and I watched the markets drop, 
ticker crawling across the bottom of the Bloomberg screen, 
and salvaged what we could,
kept Microsoft, sold AXA, unwound

I descended into the underworld again
in my dream and there for the umpteenth time 
stood my father in a plaid button-down shirt
and khakis a freshly lit pipe a wreath of smoke