I know trust 

or
I used to

long ago

she never said 
she was leaving

one day she just up and

left

i didn’t ask 
where she was going

i thought she’d be back 

but recently–
disappointment
betrayal
confusion

They’re the only ones
who walk through my door
without knocking

We’ve known each other 
for awhile

so, it’s okay

but I miss trust

how I always knew
she’d be there

until she wasn’t 

and most days 
I don’t recognize 
any other faces

Just the same 
old friends

that keep coming back

 How could I not linger over coffee
here in the Hofgarten, considering how often
enigmatic allusions have sent me scurrying—           
        libraries                       
            museums                                   
                opera houses           
        encountering                       
             questioning                                   
                struggling                                               
                    plumbing
profound depths:           
    my own ignorance                       
        set against a partial vision                                   
            unfathomed depths                                               
                unattained— 
I sip the coffee and relish the leafy silence,
and I marvel at the track my life has taken
because, on that day so many years ago,
I read Eliot— 

have a drink, I say
bottle in each hand
the old man grins
grabs at my offer
swigs one back
wipes with a sleeve
looks me in the eye
takes off his hat
bald patch shiny
I’m humbly, he says
in your debt sir,
but remember the
poor and needy,
weak and wounded,
sick and sore,
don’t just show up
at the beaches

Summer was

mornings full of possibility,

a season of new, exciting movies,

cartoons and comedy specials,

a long series of play dates,

days at my grandmother’s pool,

a trip to King’s Island,

delicious cookouts,

dazzling fireworks,

sleepovers

that went on for weeks,

video game marathons,

popsicles in plastic,

Batman ice cream

with gum ball eyes

from the ice cream man’s truck,

s’mores,

a break from school,

a break from homework,

a break from bullies,

being free from time,

being with friends,

being dragged to

Vacation Bible School

and church camp,

family reunions in Nashville,

always over too soon,

a time to read,

a time to play,

a time to dream,

a taste of Heaven

or at least a Heaven

I actually wanted to go to.

Noticed
My mouth wash was
20% A.B.V.
“Fuck. Do I have to start over…
Again?”

I’m stroking Otis
with my right hand,
my left arm around him,
my cheek against his neck.
It’s 92 degrees out,
and he’s flicking his tail,
back and forth at flys.
I’ve just nailed shoes
onto his hind feet.
A steady rhythm of 
bashing and scraping,
cutting and pulling,
yanking and yelling.
With each brush
of my hand, I whisper
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so
rry as round tears roll
down my face.
His black hairs stick
to my skin in the wetness
and when I pull back
he is looking at me
with endless, endless
eyes that don’t show
what he’s thinking.

When heliotrope and bellflower,
columbine and bee balm
rainbow my gardens—their
gowns and ruffles no trick 
of the light—my thoughts
go on pilgrimage to summers
at home and all the colors
that tailored my father’s lilies.
City boy and no born gardener,
his corn barely beat knee high.
But he loved lilies—resurrection
symbol—flowers he could
kneel beside.

Will my lilies, budding now by
our thick-walled stone house
bloom on his birthday again
this year—bloom with his
confidence in rainbow’s
lasting covenant?

One discarded slip of food
and I feed the thousand minute
faces smiling from dark sand.
The ants spiral around my palm
like little black angels, like I am 
a generous god, offering proof.

Sweet ash, the tourists come
smogged out by thin cigarettes
to gather around crumbs of art,
bluebird tiles on the wall, the gates
who arch open to heaven’s garden:
roses larger than my head.

For stopping her
at the Kroger 
to tell her that her 
hair is beautiful. 

Now that we are engaged 
I feel, I fear, that my own
compliments are more or less 
like this row of unwashed cars,
the silty puddle, the marooneed 
shopping carts that is, they are 
predictable, unimaginative 
routine, compact, for lack
 
of a better word befitting
the occasion of her. The jubilee
of herin a rainsoaked
grocery store parking lot.

For her hair is like unto
rays of sunshine streaming
through the muck clustered
clouds, which someone
once said, and I believed, is
indeed the voice of god.