A woman with three children
Lost one.
He ran away laughing.
But a woman with a teen-aged son
And a big smile
Swooped in a like a low-flying aircraft
And caught him between her mother’s *******
And took him back.

A Tuesday I should have been in school,
Sitting in the basement,
With my father,
And my grandmother,
And my brothers and sisters.
Dad reading from the Bible.
I looked up through the window,
And saw the gurney wheels roll out the front door.

Are you still alive?
Or did your mother’s mistake
Give birth to a child
With her own death already within?
I remember your head on my shoulder
When you told me
“I’ll probably be okay.
But I might need a hysterectomy.”
You never gave me the chance
To face that future with you.
“Maybe we both needed it,”
As you closed the door
I looked you up on Facebook
You’d be sixty-eight now,
If you lived.

On the shore
Of the dark lake,
I awoke,
When someone said
"Hey, Simpson"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Simpson.
The voice spoke again,
Then another, then a chorus
Of "Hey, Simpson".
The next night I awoke
When someone said
"Hey, Edgar"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Edgar.

The melting snow
Reveals the ruins of my city,
Fills the *** holes,
And makes the heaved sidewalks
Into skewed mirrors
Reflecting the abandoned storefronts.
And the legislature just extended
Daylight savings time.
Again.

The boys were throwing poles
Like spears
To see who was the mightiest
I threw a pole too.
Even little John Dinky
That twit
Threw his pole
Farther than mine
And that has made
All the difference.

I saw a dark rainbow,
An arc of shadow and red,
Caught between the setting sun,
And a storm in the east.
Light and dark in conflict,
Locked in somber beauty,
Against the end of day.

The teacher traced the golden lines
Across his Mercator projection,
(Now considered imperialist.)
The Frigid zone:
Where people live only to survive
The Torrid zone:
Where life is too easy
We should be grateful
To live in the Temperate zone:
Where the challenge of the seasons
Makes men prepare and plan
And make their alabaster cities gleam
How cruel of us
To deny them
Our metaphor.

I remember sitting at the top of the stairs
At night
To hear adult secrets from below.
They talked about Polio
And Selma.
“We’ll have to keep his bedroom window closed.”
“Did you hear that sheriff with the sunglasses?”
I remember the iron lung wards,
Like graveyards for the living.
I asked my father if the protestors were crazy.
He said “no.”
I remember they called Sabin a hero,
The March of Dimes moved on.
We moved to an integrated school.
“I’m not colored,” Olonzo told me.  “I’m black.”
I remember mounting tapes on the night shift
With Don.
We played chess when it got quiet.
We joked about playing black and white
Until he got killed.
Now Black Lives Matter
And my mask hangs next to the car keys.

We’re allowed to walk
Down by the river
During the Plague
Stepping aside for the others
So they don’t get too close
While the lustful geese
Joust, just like
The middle ages
And the river rolls down to the sea.

Do Seagulls have kings?
Someone to settle disputes
Over choice bits
Of floating detritus?
They don’t seem organized,
Balancing on the wind,
And Laughing

Why must I die?
I asked the man in the black robe
As he sharpened his bone-white knife
My time here has been so short
He stepped closer
And smiled
(Why does death smile)?
You should be grateful
Everyone must face me
Naked and alone
Unable to flee or cajole or bargain
Or bully
He lifted his blade
Or would you prefer
An immortal ******?

I couldn’t find the car
So, I walked that night
Past tall stone churches,
And trees too big,
And gardens with wizards hiding in the corners.
I shouted in the courtyard of echoes
Was dazzled in the hall of illusions
I walked in bare feet
Through fields of herbs
By secret ponds of golden fish
And looked through the window
At the iron towers
Silhouetted by the blue dawn.
Until they told me
It was time to go.

I used to pray at bedtime
That your electric violence
Would spare our house.
Once I stood on a summer night,
Bare ankles wet with dew,
As your voice rumbled across the fields,
And you lit the clouds beyond the trees.
Later I drove a car,
Secure that my steel box
And rubber wheels ungrounded me.
But you set the wires swinging,
And unbearable blue light
Cast black shadows through the windshield.
Now the sky grows darker,
And the wind is in my face.
You strike close,
Then closer,
And closer still.

You don’t sleep well in hospitals
Someone always bustles in
To bring your suppository.
At night, they ship out the visitors
Leaving flowers and balloons stirring in the air conditioning
It’s dark
Except for the light under the door
And quiet
Except for
The distant beeping at the nurse’s station
The balloon faces leer from the shadows
While I watch Forensic Files marathons
Waiting for the next dose.
You feel good for three hours
But the meds always wear off before
The nurses will give you another.
When they come, a quick pill in a paper cup,
And you can sleep for a while
The fourth hour is the hardest

The wind brought the smell
Of aspen trees
Down from the Rockies
Clearing the smell of wood smoke
In that town of Arab princes
And Physics institutes
And visiting Tibetan monks.
My father settled his old bones
On the front porch.
“Son”, he said, perhaps knowing
The staleness in my heart,
“Why don’t you go to a lecture at the institute?”
So I walked through the fragrant streets,
As sunset lit the mountains tops
Above the shadowed valley,
To the auditorium crowded with far-seers.
“What is the origin of supermassive black holes?”
“What role does dark matter play in the evolution of galaxies?”
And the staleness blew away with the wood smoke.
My mind wandered across the universe
As I walked home under the starry sky,
Telling my wife, so far away, of my rediscovered awe.
I looked up to see maroon robes
And the gentle face from the posters:
“Hear the Dali Lama speak.”
With my android to my ear,
I smiled.
And he smiled.
As the wind flowed down from the mountains.

Ten-thirty AM in the campground,
Mourning Doves coo their sad sound,
People air their damp sleeping bags
Children swarm on electric scooters.
(In my day, it was roller skates)
Then, the diesels rumble to life.
Wives with cell phones direct the backouts,
Don’t run over the scooters!
Speed limit: five miles per hour,
(When are we going to go metric?)
Yet the earth trembles
As they pass by, single file.
Above, old white men look down
From their Plexiglas canopies,
The last one towing a smart car.
(To save gas, I presume)
The rumble moves down the county road,
The electric scooters swarm again,
And the Mourning Doves resume their laments

Red:
The glimmer of Mars on a northern lake
Sandblasting the old battleship’s belly

War:
Men in blue jackets line the railings
Bloodless hands signed the armistice,

Thursday:
Too early for a drink after work
White faces watched the stock market fall

Blackboards:
Teacher’s pets got to clean the erasers
The sound of fingernails could twist your stomach

Convenience:
What a thing to base society on
Driving down to pick up a box of hamburger helper

Michelangelo:
Woman’s ******* on men’s bodies
Freeing the form from the marble

Igneous Rocks:
Lava flows melting the asphalt driveways
Ocher glow on the bellies of helicopters.