Four Minutes Left in the Day of Resurrection
people
so cruel and guilty
created their own god
to forgive them
then killed him
for all the things
they’d done wrong.
he was a kind
and obvious man,
had a mother in
the audience,
a father who wasn’t
in the picture.
Hand Creams and House Blend
there are always several women sitting
cross-ledged at the wire tables at the rear of
the cafe, making small noises to each other and
their own hands; their hands never talk back.
and older man in light denim bends
over at his waste, folding in his chair,
as if something sudden had happened to his shoes.
he makes a small ugly sound, something akin
to the noise a fledging crow might make
failing at flight and difficultly finding
a lower branch; neither the table nor the shoes
can help to clear his airway
but they are all that bear his presence.
he had become as invisible as
his father had been after his working
days ended with a silent lack of integrity.
forcing the bitter burn of coffee past
his screaming tongue and budgingly
into his throat, he felt the air come back.
he swallowed a few hard breaths and stood
rolling his paper and wrapping his napkin
around the heat of his cup of coffee
and made for the door.
before his exit a white-haired woman
with round eyes and sagging cheeks put
her limp hand on his forearm and asked
if he had been choking, if he was okay; she could not tell.
he nodded once with a slight smile and replied that
he needed something to wake him anyway.
as he pushed through the back door
into the smell of morning, he caught
a glimpse of himself in the glass.
it swung past him–too fast for him to
recognize his own face.
one woman at the table sneezed into her hands.
the old man blessed her. her hands said nothing.
she worried she might have offended them.
she apologized
but still no reply.
The Best of Us (Love Us When We’re Not Watching)
The best of us have made their quiet turns
making chestnut drawers in desks overflow with records,
ugly detail and tedium in plagues–
those things that squint our eyes and cause
our fat fingertips to drag up and down the center
of our greasy foreheads, same as our father’s fingers dragged.
The best of us take the traditions of teeth and pennies
to bed where nightmares live and myths are jolly
as lies in a hand or two of life beneath sour cigar smoke.
The best of us have learned to cry invisibly, back behind
those dusting dresses under the red wicker sewing kit,
stepping all over over-turned shoes that are always expected
to leave redder marks as their feet grow paler
and their ankles go weak in forgetting stirrups.
The best of us make phone calls from the road
on their way to nurse their mother to a comfortable death
and ask without the slightest bitter irony
“How are you feeling? Did you get the check in the mail yet?”
I Don’t Know What, But I Know I’m Forgetting Something
I sat alone in the same room
for nine days with two chairs
leading two different lives
I watched the film I thought I’d wait
to watch with you but
in the end, before I started
it, decided I’d better understand
if I were alone with it
I gained some slow weight
and saved the bags in which it came.
for nine days I forgot grammar
and spelled words like a dream.
now I think maybe one day I’ll
remember how I’m supposed to be living
remember my filthy childhood
find my way back beneath the sand
before the plywood rotted and
the alarm went off.
