Relativity


You tell me you
can’t trust what I say,

that I lie about
your hair, the dress,

the way your eyes
are still as bright

as the sea, your
face still as lovely as day,

your body the only
one I think of

when my body yearns
to be touched.

I tell you there is
more than one truth.

My truth is always
that I love you.

Let others tell you that
other truth.




Sedentary


In a moment, almost as if

by magic, children appear

wind-blown, pink-coated, running,

dancing, singing, simply spinning,

climbing, falling, rising, sometimes

crying, climbing again, always

becoming, trying, failing, never

giving up, sometimes succeeding, masters

of imagination, transformation,

Heraclitean ontology,

Vortex of
movement and memory,

perpetually undone.

They remind us in our place along the bench

how
much like verbs we used to be.





With Promises Only
Death Could Keep



What is this road like?


This road is like the grass that runs between it.

This road is like a guitar string strung so tight

it holds the vibration of your touch forever.


What is this road like?


This road is like a line that runs through

your mind towards everything you’ve ever seen.

This road wears darkness like a second skin.


What is this road like?


This road is like the last time

you squeezed your eyes closer together,

looking at something you couldn’t quite

make out, something that wouldn’t come closer,

wouldn’t turn itself to satisfy your eyes.

This road is like a cat’s tongue coated

with stubble, a finger curling before you.


What is this road like?


This road is like the distance in your eyes

the last time you stopped listening.

This road thinks it has the right to move.

This road is like the bruised sleep

of boxes, the soft splashing of stone,

the magic carpet nailed to the floor.


What is this road like?


This road is like a door that opens

(like the bad joke on TV) on another door,

and another behind the new one and so forth.

This road is an open mouth full

of teeth, an eye with peacock’s wings,

a chest to lie down in.

This road is like a gown thrown down

before you--an invitation you can’t refuse.


What is this road like?


This road is like the place you touch

the canvas, the marble, the block

of wood, the pen to the page,

the face of the person you love.

There is not a single answer to this road.



What is this road like?



This road thinks it can breathe.

This road thinks it has hands

to hold you. This road truly

believes it is going somewhere.



This road thinks it could
go on forever.





When It Comes My Time to Go


I want to go falling,

not from some sad height

like anyone’s Lover’s Leap

or the top of a six-story
building

in a town where the tallest

building is six stories high.



It needs to be at least the
height

of Natural Bridge, Kentucky,

Crowder’s Mountain, seventeen


stories or more, so I might

have time for one final
thought,

even the possibility of
regret.



I’ll hand someone the camera,

a complete stranger, ask

if they’ll snap a shot for my
family

with the sky spread out
behind me.

I’ll take a step back, and
another,

and then one too many.



I’ll want them to know there
was nothing

personal in it, nothing
missing,

that it was simply time to
go,

and disallowed the right

to walk out into the woods

and lie down with the earth



warm and familiar against

my back, this would be

satisfactory, perhaps

ecstatic, almost like flying,


eyes full of the world

I’d long to remember.

______________________