in mary-janes and ironed pleats
i learned about the world;
my knuckles bruised from wooden rule
i did what i was told.
"redemption comes in just one form,"
crowed sister mary-grace.
"accept your dear Lord Jesus Christ
and then you will be saved."
we learned of all the stories
and sang out all the creed.
we swallowed what they gave us
without choosing what to eat.
perhaps if we thought before we ate,
we might yet have been saved.
alas the poison has gone down
and sent us to our graves.

This is it, right, the  major leagues
Big crowd, No tee
I was never good at sports
I think it’s because I was always afraid
The ball would hit me in the face
But that’s what it does-life, right?-it hits you in the face
How can you know how wonderful it is
Unless your hands are open to catch it?

But my shoes were always untied
and my mit didn’t fit right
and I bumbled in right field like a
blind honey bee
Buzzing in my own world
My own thoughts
I would look up at the sky and
wonder who was up there
swimming in the great blue
upside down pool

****

I was hit by the ball
Reality knows when to dig her claws
“Baker, what the hell are you doing”
Brought back to the team by
The red faced coach who couldn’t
kick me out of the little league
What good are dreams anyway?
The thoughts that float up to outer space
There’s no air in outerspace
To breathe
So what good are my dreams
That go to die
If I could tie a tether to the thoughts
That spill out  from my temples
And hold on to them like balloons
Maybe they could do some good
But in trying to anchor the ascending
I’ll end up floating away myself

Wouldn’t it be better if I cut the tethers
And just played the game
The man up there swimming
Will keep on swimming
He doesn’t care if I stop to say hello

if i thought there would be enough sunsets

peachy pink baths and twilight friction

then maybe i wouldn’t be frozen now.

if that orangey milk could navigate the twisted time belt

and swallow me in the here and now

maybe it would melt me, maybe it would warm me

maybe i would laugh and see the wonders

of the cosmic radiance.

sunsets, though, are not enough

and hope—

it is an idealogical phantom, as love or fear,

it’s as real as you need—as real as you believe

until you run your fingers through it

and all that’s there

is mist.

They say Death is destructive.
The way she steals, with slender fingers,
A fragment of your being
with every life she claims.

And though it feels like some particles of me
Have been left with the particles of you,
To descend alone into the dark,
I know it isn’t true.

You’re not buried any more than I.
You are more than a collection of atoms,
Rotting beneath the grave.
And intangible things, Death cannot touch.

What light you lit in your short life,
Lit cathedrals and palaces for me.
The stars that burn in brilliant orbs,
Is the beauty you want me to see.

The beauty you created cannot be destroyed,
No matter how hard she tries.
The light you lit will never go out,
For it glows in our own eyes.

I
I fell in love with a waitress
at a lake-side café;
her golden hair fell
like the waves that crashed
so greedily on the shore.
She looked to me with eyes of life,
lit up like constellations or
a thousand roman candles
burning for me.

II
When she turned away,
I thought of you.
of your arrogance that seared my skin
your ignorance that burnt my tongue.
I thought of the way you held my heart once
like a porcelain prize to keep.
And how it shattered and cracked
within your hands,
and crumbled at your feet.

III
I fell in love with a waitress
at a lake-side café;
she didn’t know my name.
But with her eyes, bright blue and full,
like brilliant china plates,
I knew she’d repair the fissures
and cracks
you’d left in your wake.