we do not write poetry
we write mirrors
which are held up
to curious faces
who read
looking for their
own reflections

It is five-thirty a.m.
I step outside for
the newspaper,

not four feet away
a raccoon sits on
its haunches like

a paunchy Buddha,
smiling as only liars
and sick animals

can; I toss a half
eaten piece of bacon
between  its  legs, pick

up the paper,
back away,
away.

When I first met her
God put a speaking trumpet
straight up against my ear
and stated
very slowly
in that Godly voice
that is a mix of
the ocean's roar
and the singing of
Barry White

"This is the one
you've been looking for."

The stars were in on it
bubbling like champagne
in the night sky
singing a sweet accompaniment
a singular poem
of one word:
Yes.

What would you do?

I took the only possible path:
Surrender.

Gave up my wandering ways
quit my womanizing
got hitched straight away
tied the knot
didn't know a thing
about knot tying
but the **** thing held.

And here we are.
Poet number one
that would be her.

Poet number two-and-a-half
me

Marriage solved nothing
brought more questions
than answers
more unfinished business
than completed tasks

Yet at this late stage
a sense that against all odds
against the evidence
of my hands
against every argument
presented by the priest
who reluctantly married us

Something has gone
wonderfully right.

The stars,
dear friends,
truly know their business.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

We were misfits
the neglected *******
of a backwards world
that rejected us
not because we were sick
demented or dangerous
but because we didn't prescribe
to a preconceived notion
of what a functioning citizen was.

Not rotten enough to spoil
behind the bars of a prison
just competent enough
to work menial jobs
and drown our sorrows
at the corner pub.

We swallowed this hard truth
the same way we drank our shots
with no chaser
and at times it burnt
maybe even made us tear up
but we never let it beat us
(too strong for that)

We were beautiful
resilient beasts
that could carry the weight
of the world upon our shoulders
and it was heavy
but we would tell ourselves
"doesn't every world need an atlas?"
so we went on holding up the sky
when no one asked it of us.

I'm interlacing with Lehman
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
the answer connects Dean
with Ella and
him with us in Film
on TV through VR
singing Broadway Medleys
in a cool Grandfather's wobble
in a crystal Voice
like Mom's clarion call
a silver thread
running through our dull
tapestry I'm mixing
metaphors
muddling music
weaving songs before work
before heatmaps
Seurat R packages
multicolored modality
in higher dimension
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
we just keep interlacing