Front Porch Vicissitude and Satori

We took down the porch swing
because the paint had flaked off
and the wood was rotting.
In its place now sit two Adirondack
chairs and a table
where I relax with The Snow Leopard
and a cup of coffee and
pause now and then to recognize the
breeze. Sometimes I still hear
the creak of the swing’s chains
like an itch on the shin of a severed leg.

**

Family Time

I’m set to carve the head on my table.
The family smiles like lab
assistants. The lights flicker
because the neighborhood is unstable.
I imagine a world where
my love is boundless and I am honored
for this. I see my face in the knife.

**

Home at this Point

“Where do we go when we die? he said.
I don’t know, the man said. Where are we now?”
Cormac McCarthy

Open the door and
a little light
leaks in.
My daughter waits
at the end
of the hall,
her feet need socks.
There’s a thrum
inside my
sternum, a light
glow only you know
about. If I say
I need you
I trust you
to know what I mean.
I mean it’s
lonely on the median,
asleep in the
well-kept grass,
as the monsters speed on.

**

Ophelia

I still see her pink ribbons floating,
the water around her bubbling and
conscious of her expanding death. Her
dress rose like water-columns,
her eyes still tender and pleading.
Several small boys gathered
when they dragged her out, when the
police stood around silent and almost
passionate. Several cars parked here
and there, several people stood on the
outer rim of the tragedy and exchanged
sighs. All around, out in the suburbs,
kitchen lights came on, night fell, and
the wind caught in the trees.
Several nights later the water was still,
the bank dry, the imprint of her body gone.

**

Asterisk

When she was younger she wore
her hair in a ponytail.
She still keeps the rubberbands on her dresser
where she sits
and drops tears into them
nights.