Flying through the empty streets
with stoplights only changing for us,
down ever familiar roads
and axiety consumed highways.
I wish every night could be like this.
Where I don’t give a damn what they think
and I feel like a little kid again.
Do we really have to go home yet?
Once tomorrow comes I have to go back
to the reality of math tests and boring classes,
so let’s just keep driving
through these ghost towns we claimed for ourselves.
hold a pigeon.
Your hands will
dewdrop with sweat
as you cradle
its faint form,
press back its nails
to prevent injury.
But still,
its pendulum heart
will tick against the
fingers imprisoning
its ribcage, flattening
its feathers, folding in
its talons.
Like pigeons,
our brains and bodies
click against the
clatter of the heavens
holding us —
with how much care,
we do not yet know.
Savings and Loans, good places to park your money,
HMOs, providing health care services when you really need them,
Time shares, for vacations that suit your schedule,
Trickle down, the working class guarantee,
Real estate limited partnerships, solid no-risk investments that are easy to exit.
Then there is milk, the healthy drink for which you will never outgrow your need,
Sun tanning (along with milk), the harmless way to get Vitamin D,
Four-year college, the only way to success with a guaranteed payoff,
Giving your Social Security and bank account numbers to the helpful person who called you to alert you to unauthorized use of your credit card,
And finally, Crypto, because “Fortune favors the brave.”
Today my new book will arrive,
in a big cardboard box,
green covered and filled with my life.
I’m anticipating this event like a baby left
on the doorstep. How long I’ve awaited
this day–nine months at least, an appropriate
time for the birth of a child. Though the poems
took years to create.
My baby’s almost here and what will I do
with her, yearning to be worthy of this life,
My DNA in print. There’s nothing
like seeing it in final form, in the flesh
so to speak, to hold it, to know
it’s real, a tangible being to leave behind
with my distinctive thumbprint.
I. Whatcha Need
the river
3 pounds ground beef
the passing of the dead on the banks of what remains
4 Tbsp. minced garlic
a galloping sound
2 diced green peppers
the sound of a violin being shattered by a perfectionist on the verge of quitting
1 diced onion
the wind, humming half-drunkenly
1 16oz. can red kidney beans
the song of nuns calming children during a hurricane
1 beer
the four seasons
1 16oz. can pinto beans
a mouth full of vowels and air
6 bay leaves
every ache in your body
2 16oz. cans of corn
thee and thou and thy and the way all three make your tongue feel under your teeth
3 tsp. salt
Agamemnon’s last cry and the sound of his spear whistling in the Trojan wind
3 Tbsp. sugar
the long process of two people becoming a couple
1 Tbsp. chili powder
the words you need when you’re untethered from yourself
3 Tbsp. Dale’s seasoning sauce
the sound of that violinist trying again
2 15oz. cans diced tomatoes
the words that bring the world back when it’s floating away like a helium balloon
1 tsp. black pepper
waking up taking up too much space breaking up making up
1 8oz. can tomato sauce
the odor of the Library of Alexandria burning
2 Tbsp. vinegar
the prayer of a dying man, veiled in anagrams
3 serrano peppers
all of your sorrows
II. Whatcha Do
Begin with the river. Brown beef and memories of the dead with garlic, green peppers, the heartsong of the near-shattered violinist, and onion. Love the world the way a horse’s spirit gallops in its body. Add the whistles of wind, the nunsong, the mouthfuls of air and vowels, the thee and the thy and the thou, the ache of human pangs, the spear shivering in midair, the long process of becoming a couple, the words you need to bring yourself back to yourself. Add Dale’s after draining grease. Add heat and ingredients, starting with seasonings. Add the seasons. Sprinkle in sighs and songs, the sound of the violin trying again, the words you need to bring the world back to the world. Slowly bring to boil. Add beer and beans, the tide, corn, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. Add bay leaves and breakups followed by makeups. Put all of your sorrows into the anagrammed prayer and leave them there to simmer. Cook over med/low heat for two hours, stirring occasionally.
When the streetlamp flicked on at the corner
where Morris and Glazier met, it became home
base, the place we scattered from and returned to,
playing Ghost in the Graveyard. The darker
night turned, the more intense its light radiated
a shivery halo, core hot bone-white, a full moon,
neon yellow, evolving to orange, red, green,
blue as it expanded, the colors of flames.
When I gazed into its face, thousands of filaments
bent like arches and pointy inverted v’s emanated
a constant buzz, sizzle I imagined an electric charge
or falling star particles. Mesmerized me as it did moths
and mayflies with their long, dangly legs—rising,
circling, falling. O, to stand under it when it hummed on—
a jolt of energy, a blossom opening. To follow my long
shadow on the street, mirror my every move. Sixty years
later, still entranced when under a streetlight
at night—furry glow a warm aura—memories
of when finally drained, we were ready
to surrender to the inside, and sleep.
~ Inspired by Giacomo Balla’s Street Light, 1909
