I walk through an empty entrance to a museum I know.
Shoe sounds on tile floor resounding.        echo
Nothing new to see.  

The collection on exhibit, whatever’s arranged here, is only discarded remnants,
crumbling to dust and ash and fading fast.                what happened?
What a question.  

Ripe decomposing mantles each piece – no peace, just ticking time
and a wafting tendril of melancholy.
I recognize the mischievous changeling getting a perverse kick out of ruining
anticipation into dread.  

That other sound?              used-up peals of hope in the echoing hall,
palpable emptiness. My impulse is to follow the maze of inevitable shadow-shapes
winding away.  

But I run until I reach the door.  

I open the liquid nest,
find the gleam of ocean turning,
swim to think, forgive,
hatch a forest,
ink in birds
to sing my mother
a letter of whispers
webbed with lace
in my name.  

* Erasure of Sally Rosen Kindred’s poem “First Night.”

(I tried to insert the image of the erased poem, but couldn’t get it to work.)

              As an inmate in San Quentin,
Merle Haggard must’ve hollered
as Johnny Cash took to stage, 
began playing his set, heckling 
security.
               Everyone, especially
prisoners, need to release the
tension sometimes. I listen to
“Mama Tried” and try to feel
less like a disappointment,
singing along.
               Who’s to say what’s 
true? Maybe “We Don’t Smoke
Marijuana in Muskogee,” but
I’m sure Merle did.
                Illusion is another
word for “lie,” isn’t it? The
room dark, music drowning
all the doubts, all the damn 
ugly noise inside me. 

Bows of trees I didn’t plant bob and dance like an amphitheater of lighters while I scream and sob and laugh at the purgatory I’ve found myself in

Choosing to poison my self constantly so I can pretend I don’t believe in a god that’s never talked back

Laid face up in a thunderstorm begging for some sort of sign

Either struck by lightening or laid to rest 

When there’s nothing left
to be done, and the soul
is poised for flight

and all you can do is hold
their hand as they make
the crossing, when

you stand together
at the precipice
of the whole damn

mystery, Ada Limón
knows when she says
you can hear its approach,

a creeping thing, a vine
growing close.
But there’s another sound 

too, like an orchestra
tuning up in the pit,
the stories and jokes shared

around the bedside
to lighten the collective
grief. And even as the soul lifts

off, the conductor raises
his baton, commands
that sudden 

charged silence, a reminder
to lift the instrument
again to the mouth,

for those of us
with symphonies
yet to play.

My neighbor brings me a page from her coloring
book, a rabbit in soft pencil, green and brown.
She colors to occupy the long days and nights
of the pandemic.  I don’t tape it to the fridge
but prop it up in the kitchen along with the notes
and cards I want to hold onto for a while,
pieces of paper I can’t quite bring myself
to throw away, my own silent support system
on my countertop.  As I pass them each day,
do I only imagine they eit a quiet glow?

we all trickle down 
the stream 
of consciousness

sometimes 
we skip 
along the rocks 
like stones 
across the water 
we are 

sometimes 
something’s in the way 
of our flow :
a fallen branch ,
a drought 

of assistance 
but we find a way 
to keep going 

you may go this way 
i may go that 
but we’ll all end 
up together 

your ashes in the stream 

carry our lives 

back to you 

In a dream
I will remember  

you’ll take me fishing
 
you’ll hook lunch me on the line
that cheap 99 cent kind
promising
that it’s the best bait ever
before I give up
and jump in the water
determined to grab
some tiny fish with my fingers  

while you laugh from a lawn chair
sipping diet coke  

saying  

let’s go home and get some chocolate chip cookies. 

How do I rationally explain
the sensations I feel
where my arm used to be?

I have no chronic pain to speak of
or crawling or pinpricks
as others often do.

Instead I feel the frightened shudders
the chest rumble of screams
knuckle sting of knocking

As my phantom limb travels about
to be the icy fingers
the triple rap on wall.

How do I explain the souvenirs
clumps of hair and fabric
I find upon waking?