I am in bed, midnight, when the doctor calls.
She says my brother is in the emergency room
with high blood sugar, dehydration, another stroke.
        She wants guidelines.

Dementia.
He cannot feed himself or even smile.
Yet he lights up whenever I arrive —
        you can sense it in his eyes.

As a child I chased after him on a tricycle.
He taught me baseball, rebellion, girls.
Taught me to drive our old Studebaker.
Sent me letters from California until at last
I followed, too. Now he leads
        on this new path.

"No heroic measures,” I say. “Do not resuscitate."
“Okay,” the doctor says, "what about a feeding tube?"

When the heart stops, it is as if the body
has decided to die. But if the body cannot swallow?
Or think? He slowly starves. Who decided that?

To the black bedroom a soft light comes,
headlights passing. Rain is dripping.
Dogs are sleeping on the floor,
one with a gentle snore.
My wife, head propped on hand,
lies on her side, watching.
In this quiet night
with the doctor’s breath in my ear
I am an incompetent god,
        but the only one on call.

Grandson unlike most of humanity
enjoys the sound of my singing
so together we make up songs.
He at ten weeks with green eyes,
jug ears and the occasional goofy smile
is an honest audience though a toothless critic
who frowns upon hard consonants
but relishes lengthy vowels:

        la la-la la la-la la, la la-la la
        la! la! la la-la
        ooo ooobie  
        ooo!
        be doobie doo
        green eyes, green eyes, green eyes, green,
        green eyes, green eyes, green eyes, green…

Who needs radio? I compose, he edits,
new melodies fill the room,
perhaps only we two can understand.
Don’t listen.

Me, a teacher of poetry, the idea is insane.
Yet I’m here once a week at the nuthouse. Oops. Hospital.
A lunch conversation with a nurse.
“That old guy, Russell, he seems so gentle,” I say. “So normal.”
Russell writes about hummingbirds.
“It’s either here or prison,” the nurse says.
“Oh,” I say.
Actually I’m not allowed to ask about patients.

But the nurse, now she’s worked up.
“Russell had custody of his granddaughter,” the nurse says.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“The mom died,” the nurse says, “the baby was six months.”
“Oh,” I say.
“To call him ‘*** offender’ sounds too clinical,” the nurse says.
I say nothing.
“He must’ve bought Vaseline by the bucket,” the nurse says.
“Um…” I say.
“He ****** that baby every day,” the nurse says.
“Three hundred and sixty-four days a year,” the nurse says.
“Christmas, she got a holiday,” the nurse says.
“Oh,” I say, and I push my plate away.

“Sorry,” the nurse says, “I ruined your appetite.”
“Not your fault,” I say.
“I hate hummingbirds,” the nurse says. “I hate poetry.”
I say nothing.
“Can a poem be ugly?” the nurse asks.
I reach for a fresh napkin, slide it across the tabletop.
“If a poem could ****,” the nurse says, “I’d write one.”
From my pocket, I hand her a pen.

After scary sickness, weeks in bed,
today I’m better.
Head clear. Body hollow, sixteen
pounds shed in sweat and snot.

So I call Dial-A-Lawyer,
write a will by phone.
Drive to the city, Social Security
to register my daughter
who is unknown by the state,
born at home
one year to this date.
Bring her along as proof.
Paperwork.
Plan a death and record a birth.

My beloved bakes a cake. One candle.
I’m still a bit shaky. Can’t rest.
Where’s my tool belt?
It’s time to build toys. A wagon.
A house. Soon.
A life for this daughter.

Curtains thick as carpets
shut out the courtyard, neighbors, society.
She’s a gentle, cane-walking woman.
Posture of a question mark. The cords of her neck,
withered stalks as she peers up at me.
From eye to jaw a scar like a dried fig.
The world has run roughshod over this woman.
Pointing at the baseboard heater, she folds
arms over chest, shivers in drama.
“Okay,” I say. “I get it.”

With screwdriver and flashlight I kneel on a rug
woven with exquisite patterns of dangerous beasts:
dragon, eagle, serpent. A nudge on my arm.
Holding a tray of baklava and apricots, she says, “Take.”
In a minute she’s back with a tiny cup. “Take.”
Brew so thick that if you spilled, the coffee
would not splash. It would shatter.

Soon my belly is grinding like a coffee mill.
And the heater is fixed. I kneel over the baseboard,
rubbing my hands in a pantomime of heat.
She takes my face between her fingers.
She beams, nodding her head.
It’s a thank you, but more.
Be nice, she seems to say, and conquer evil.
Opening the door, she sends me outside
with my tool belt and work boots
to the bright sunlight of California, USA.

The weather report
        has one hitch:
It never rains
        on the rich

Your water balloon will always miss
Their lips are dry when they kiss
In a flood they float yachts
In the nose, no snots

When huddled masses lose all
        slammed by tsunami
The rich on high ground
        donate salami
Point a hose at a rich woman,
        she will point you to jail
(and you will go there
        without fail)

Their roof never leaks
Their grass has no dew
The toilet won’t clog
        with their poo

The rich man is one lucky fella
A poor man like me
        will hold his umbrella

In the store it catches his eye.
The boy asks, “What’s that?”
I answer: “Pocket pie.”
“A what?”
“A pie that fits in your pocket. Want one?”
Of course.
Back home, parked, we stay in the front seat
of the truck. The boy turns the radio on.
Age two and a half, he chooses rock.
I drink a beer. He bites crust, apple goo.
Saturday afternoon, April,
sweet as pie.

Gave my daughter, age one
who could draw better than walk
a pad of Post-its, the tiny ones.

She crayon scribbled
peeled each one
to hide in corners
behind books
under the toothpaste tube
inside shoes.

A year later, moving out
cleaning up
I find behind
the clothes dryer
a nest woven with
gatherings of moss
dryer lint
lined by her Post-its
stolen by mice
who appreciate
fresh art.

Dawn when it comes
seems grudging.

Descending jets hum, invisible
above this clouded mountain
as hundreds of humans circle, floating lower
toward the airport far away
in the valley by the bay.

Wider than my spread arms fingertip to fingertip
rises a shaggy wall, massive trunk of a
young redwood, less than two hundred years old,
highway of squirrels,
homestead of owl,
a burn scar, black cave, at its base.
Spiders make busy in the bark,
webs drape like prayer flags.

Leaning, propped by tree,
the iron rim, the rotting spokes of a wagon wheel,
pioneer relic from an era just beyond.

Touched by my fingers tapping keys,
the laptop glows.
Tomorrow, daylight will be brighter.
The tree knows.

My blue heron
is actually gray.
And actually
not mine.
She visits,
then vanishes.
On land she carries her feet
floppy as waffles on jointed sticks.
In flight she ***** slowly, folded neck, gliding
just above water, then stands
still as sculpture
toes in mud
until with a sudden **** of head
(can she hear them?)
that swift beak plucks a fish,
lifts, grips like pincers,
points to the sky.
A slight shake of head
to reposition above gullet,
and she swallows
with a smacking of mouth,
a gleam of eye.
She is a beauty.
Sorry, fish.