My mother once dove into a pool
to save her drowning boy
and before that, at birth,
had him pulled
in the nick of time
from the rising well of blood
that flooded the womb.
Twice saved, many more times
patched up and sent back out
to do battle in the world.
She lies here at her last stop,
mute, gray-skinned, anxiously
tugging at the hem of her blanket,
my presence a disturbance,
a ripple in the still water
of her brackish brain.
It’s okay.
You’d rather escape than
mutter comforting noises.
A “care” emoji and you’d scrolled
my mortality (and your own) into
the air above your monitor.
But I still thank you—
genuinely—
for your clumsy embrace.
On Rome’s Metro Linea A,
a stop a thousand breeze by
when the tinny voice announces,
Prossima fermata, Baldus degli Ubaldi—
Do they wonder as I do who the bald guy
at the next stop was?
Uscita lato destra.
From a famous family of shiny pates perhaps?
Turns out—go figure—he was a lawyer,
14th century Perry Mason, big-time consigliere,
tops in Roman law and author of a stack
of commentaries and opinions,
who earned the title, Lucerna juris.
Today he’d be on TV ads and freeway billboards
in Albuquerque, offering to win you a settlement
for that chariot accident or a scuffle with the pope.
Pope Urban VI called 1-800-BALDGUY
for help in sorting out a schism and an antipope
(Urban VI v. Clement VII). His crew: the Postglossators.
Whether they sat in taverna after court glossing
back a few beers–
or maybe turning up
in episodes of Lex et Ordo
(two beats)
Codex Justinius.
who knows?
But get this:
in all the Google images,
he’s wearing a cap.
Fog clings to the yellowed pond
like breath on glass; we wear winter
coats to ward off April’s chill.
I help my son bait his hook,
swallow a soft, pink pang of guilt
over the worm’s pierced body.
Now I teach him how to cast
his line, settle into stillness,
keep his eyes on the muddied water.
It’s a practice of faith, this waiting
for sacred movement – a tug
on a string, some iridescent glimmer.
Close as a backyard garden, the desk at the corner of a long room, you can almost touch the Irish Sea on the train from Coleraine to Derry. Surging layers of white on white. A swerve and we’re barreling towards farmhouse, cliff and church, past Castlerock and Bellarena and into a double black tunnel. The train wobbles and jolts away from the sea. A shaggy raven alights on driftwood. Downhill Station is brown-beige and six shades of green. Blue-pink horizon, one farm after another and another. Through the dark hedges,
raven clears a path. Makes room
for the blind man’s cane.
A grandmother with a pixie-cut the color of milk. Her lips curled in a half-smile. She knits — black angora interlaced with pink spangles — in lockstep with the train’s rhythmic wobble. Her granddaughter twirls the skien’s long tail. Across from them two brothers talk about yesterday’s bombing at Guildhall Square. The work of unorganized ruffians, they hypothesize.
“Much less trouble since they built the Peace Bridge over the River Foyle,” says the youngest. He offers a copy of The Sentinel to the grandmother, who has quit knitting to stare at the restless incoming tides. “I think of a giant origami when I cycle over the bridge. It’s like I’m flying through a strand of DNA.”
After war you hear
young brothers chattering
while folding paper. Songs.
You came to visit my house for the first time,
after a harrowing 3 hr bridge game.
I waited at Bell House,
admiring an old tree
and reading poems
until I realized you were about to call
You refused offers of water, tea, coffee
and food. You played Claire de Lune
and Blue Moon on the piano
and sang from my Mother’s
80 year old “Timothy’s Tunes”
You listened to Goldie and I read our poetry aloud
and doted on my cat;
how proud she is, how sweet the way she
taps you on the arm with her paw
as if to say, “Hey, now! A little something for the beauty”
I gave you a card,
a picture of Martha Graham’s Letter to the World,
Goldie’s book and a print of Climax Springs
for your 89th birthday four days ago,
you said it reminded you
of the Berkshires in Amherst
Just before your turn, after I drove you
nearly all the way home,
a green traffic light’s guts dangled over an intersection.
Two traffic security officers and two cops
redirected streams of oppositely flowing traffic
through the Clark’s Pump and Shop parking lot
As I dropped you off
you said you had enjoyed the salon day.
I thought you were referring to Paris,
Gertrude Stein, artists sitting around
sharing music, poetry, paintings, prose
it was hours later when I remembered
I had also tidied up the back of your
DIY Amelie haircut
with a few small snips
Outside a sleeping school a man marches with a papier mâché effigy of an aborted fetus
the coffee house is arranged with miniature cacti, marigolds, lavender, and thistle—
busy at her computer keyboard, a pianist composes music to usher in the coming revolution in the world, her white hair dusting her nimble knuckles
before this I spent a bright, mean red morning
anxious at the little, gnawing sleep as usual,
the next trip to town unlooked
for—and grateful
at air quality improved
David Bowie played songs on the radio
my lungs a canyon from the day before
I’d been smoking more cigarettes
than I used to, but 225 days ago drunk
the hospital discharged me
out the door on foot—
and from sleeping, parked in a cold car,
again I stepped into a blinding world
of baths after living
in muck-ridden gallons of sea water
to slough off cords of kelp and beads
of fish shit —because it’s the thing to do
it’s times like these I need a sweet tomato basil
grilled cheese on texas toast
wrapped in foil on a street corner in winter
I spent two hours walking around
bumping into objects
eating stale bread instead and talking to Andy
I made no coherent sense—
we’d cover it again in two hours—
patient friend he is but today
he hit a wall as all of them do
when I happen like this
and it’s enough to make me scream
A couple embraces on the hill.
The boy on the left, turns
to embrace. His green sleeve
crosses the red field of his partner’s
sweater. He says, “we are smaller now
that we’re together.” In all opposition
to the self-help literature.
Among the notes I have left for you:
A stomach ache not blamed on waffle fries.
Who took the last Percocet? Who burns
their hand on a philodendron?
Who will eat the last of the leftover pizza?
Please make the heart sign with your hands
when you are driving behind me through Kentucky.
I love the Piedmont Cemetery in many ways.
None of which involve the dead.
Because I don’t care about the dead.
The list of frequently misspelled words
contains misspelled words.
This forces me to care about the living.
The dead are just much less active in publishing.
The couple on the hill are dead.
In many ways, which I will not outline
for you.
I am a liar.
Airek dreams of a cover band
“They were so awful,” he says,
“Mostly because of how they were dressed.”
This worries me about the living.
Liz says, “When you hold a little bird
in your fingers, it sparkles.” No
one asks: what kind of bird?
This makes me worry about the living.
Charlie mentions a cage with golden bars.
Liz goes on about the Picasso lecture: The curves,
the sexualized spaces, the artist rushing off
to stir a pot of simmering tomato sauce, “Like life
won’t be interrupted. Like life and work are intertwined.”
Behind us, Angela is singing “A Memory
from Your Swollen Heart” the way she always does.
I remember Liz saying it’s perfect (about Picasso)
as I cash out and sign the little slip of paper.
Then, the steering wheel is too hot to touch.
Because maybe its perfect too.
Later I make green curry paste and wonder
about Picasso’s tomato sauce, as I write this.
The next day, my body is telling me
four hours of sleep is too little.
Matt dies of alcohol poisoning.
Dr. Dave gets up to play Yes
on the jukebox. We laugh
and drink black and tans.
They’re playing trivia
but we are just barely
listening.
Earthquakes and Aristotle is the answer.
