Lyman, a glory hole

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We kept our plans for the week

when the weather held out

we spent the night together

when we found a reason to leave the house

The moon was young that month

as it waned and preached to us

The wind was stronger than my car

spun in eighteen wheel Volvo dust

I'll fight till the solstice

to hear you and the finches sing

and I hope the neighbors hear us

break everything.

We're still alive but it's daytime

we're still hopeful but stoplights

broke up the old drag line.

We never wanted our sore throat

days to be illuminated,

we were cold and angry

drunk and sedated.

We found torment

on the faces of our friends

when working the dead-end

came to only half the rent.

We broke from the greening block

as redbuds and bridesmaids

and our empty houses talk.

The man next to me

The man next to me always remarks on my small handwriting while polygraph lightning makes margin notes for an essay hanging over me.  I find my short script in bird rafters and chimneys full of straw.  I mostly write about women, geography, and empty evenings.  I mostly write about myself.

30'

For thirty seconds, my shutter opened

to flashlight paint and river snow. 

Frost tautened my shoulders

and our laughs clouded the air. 

We protected ears and hands

like our molecules were miracles. 

We folded useless hand warmers

in our palms and huddled to the cars. 

The February night fractured in half

and now my stomach ruins me

when you come to mind

and I warm myself in the kitchen. 

Kill the dull echo

I woke to adolescent longing for her
or at least how I imagine her to be.

And though I trained myself to drift
in hollow desire, I'm feverish now for a cure.

So I kill the dull echo of my twin bed
by forming my lips to whistle

a dream song more cheerful in its lust
like an open convertible in summer.

The road melts my tires and resolve
and I remember her again.

I wouldn't have expected

I wouldn't have expected your hair to turn that color

of the north hill when it bloomed and pollinated 

too early in the year. 

I knew, though, the grass stains 

from tackling old friends around the RC airplane field

would endure till now. 

The soil has been kind for catching me

and I haven't learned to expect your newness.  

a half hour of clarity

I moved our house without encouragement,
   lifted the cardboard without
      the weight of youth's end.

The jarring chord wakes me
   from sleepwalk, but our home
      will be my joy again.

Every patron drinks for familiarity,
   for quick-draw comfort--soon my family
      sleeps in thorough calm.

The white comforter isn't warm,
   doesn't stop my chills.
       I should have slept outside.

Half my paycheck earned me opiates,
   and half my night earned me
      a half hour of clarity.

One eddy for another

When I met you the summer had nearly begun,
and when we met again
it was nearly over.

In our rush to enjoy the season's carbonation,
we foamed at the mouth
and let our pupils open too widely.

Your movement was a typewriter hammer,
your eyes were cold tea,
and your mouth was tequila.

You were a collection of bright stones
under a fast brook,
and I was at home in the water.

I was swept downstream and swam back.
I wouldn't admit the undercurrent
that never ceased its dragging.

I fell in these two directions at once.
I loved your style and soft sarcasm,
yet I had read our last page too early.

I was nearly unconscious when I relaxed
my muscles and let the melted snow
turn me toward a new eddy.

Family, join me in a tradition of joy

Family, join me in a tradition of joy
we never cultivated before.

Sow christmas and cinema
and 'company at the door'
across the warming spring dirt.

Winter has been my forced strength
and solemnity has been yours;
silence has been my defense
and morality has been yours.

At nine, I was stubborn at each command
to read aloud or volunteer an answer
of 'milky way' or '56' or 'Jefferson.'

I taught myself resistance
to Mom's goddamn protocol
of openness and kindness
to my unknown cousins.

My silence bred quiet pride
at a classmate's misspoken word
or Pastor's mistaken Salvation metaphor.

I gained too early the habit
of erased contentment.

I let myself be unknowable
for the safety of my pride
and false construct of my happiness.

Family, come with me and kill
this thief of joy.

I made art my joy's surrogate,
enraptured in the lines and space and color
of cheap cereal packaging
and company letterhead.

I bore my faith through
eyesight and fingertips,
shaping glass into broad elms,
paint into planets, and ink into
the silhouettes of four women.

I measured myself against Monet,
thankful for the impossible distance
and willing to let his godly brushstrokes
be my severed inroads to joy.

Family, find a new direction; don't follow me
when I'm outside my mind and inside film.

Poetry grew downward through us all
the way rain dampens an old oak--
from father to sister to each brother to me,
and I'm nourished by the trickle.

In the ink rows I find the margin of Impressionism,
freeing me from my sureness in color.

Monet lets me doubt the blueness
of morning port, and Manet reminds me
the surreal tint of blood red.

Family, walk in step with me
and let approximation free you.

A haiku for McKinley Ave

The cop spoke with grace,
"OK, try to make better
decisions next time."

Dad made breakfast

While I awoke to sweat, stress and a raw heart,
Dad made breakfast in a once-blue bathrobe.

His quiet concentration of prayer and tiredness
were hemispheres to mirror the morning Earth.

He joined ancient Hebrew texts with the American
tradition of employment, then unemployment.

He purified his heart over oatmeal and fruit—
a heart, whole, like a bread advertisement.

Early, I fought brokenness with only cold water.
God forgive my slowness in understanding him.

Ninety-five

"I think I would live to one hundred,
but I've run out of husbands,"
     said Grandmother
     on the eve of ninety-five.
"Oh, but God gave me good ones,
they never cursed or yelled,
they were good to me.

"On our move, Bill told me
'I'm going to spend the rest
of my life making you happy'
and I just laughed

"that will last three months, I thought
but he sure was a good husband.

"The cigarettes caught up with them.
You know, in my generation,
if you were a man,
and you didn't smoke at thirteen,
you were a sissy.

"It would be something to live
to be one hundred, yes,
they were good men."