to the ever rotten glory of drying rats
at the entrance of a drain in L.A

they scurry like acrobats making the tight rope
electrical wire journey in a few seconds
"wow, look at them go!" spills out of an apartment window
it might as well be talking about the rats and not horse races
  
fluffy like your neighbor's dog, scruffy
elegant only in the way our wobbly daughter completes
her kindergarten ballet practice
these rats could be gloriously nimble chefs

the sticky finger you get after summer watermelon bites
I bet these rats get after pulling apart market bags of garbage
to find food is this new Los Angeles landscape that the 1850 compromise exacerbated along

I dreamed I carried you close to death
dying
over my shoulder
and your  breath so weak

I asked you where you like to go
“ to the place we met” you could not speak
“It’s too far, right” I answered my own question then I awoke in pit of sorrow
in a pool of my strength the next step was over the floor into waking life

Then, I knew that I accepted
I would be there when you died
,if you like me to, if I was still alive


I would not promise a life together
the arrogance of such promises
are mythologies of the old world
dying
of old humans wishes to exceed even life itself, control what on lips of heaven
neither angels can affirm

but i knew if you were willing and if you are able
I will join you on that day

every child I see is the light of day
how could they not be

everything is reconciled
memories, body, weight of stone on back, superfluous adjunct thoughts, miscellaneous socks still unpaired
all is looked at and then accepted

My heart caught on a hook flung out of the water and into the air
did three somersaults before it was hit with an iron cast frying pan
dropping into the current of the River
where there the rays of sun peering through could not offer warmth only show  me the color of blood dispersing from body
in that state, I drowsy
could not recognize myself
from that murk of suffering
yet to know if I would survive

like all things left looming
over the water, I was afraid
that large fish would devour
or anger’s current with its companion wind of bitterness would rest my soul on the side of the riverbank

I would like a night left alone with poetry
when the darkness of the sequestered  wishes that went ungranted swirl above the root of their conception
where all ill is met with the frankness needed
to climb a mountain in which the elevation is high
the feelings dizzying enough to make it easier
to want to trek down

I would like a single night to be multiplied  into months and years that chip away the ice top peak of such quiet black midnights
hidden at the crescent moon of my experience

Ten times you can circle over the same high peak
cycle through the seasons as you dare not to mountaineer
but every mountain of feeling must be felt
there is no way around such peaks
only lowly grounds where the merit of sorrow is the only badge you hold
and a hefty heart gets heavier with each
time around