Don’t Look Up

I don’t think I’ll look up. I heard the creek

Of weight on wood – the house begin to settle.

I know there was no footfall on the stair.

I’m happy where I am. I will not seek

Out sleeplessness, nor will I test my mettle.

I will not see you. You simply are not there.

I’ll read my book by lamplight, where I sit,

Curled and cardiganed. After a while,

My heart will slow down to a silent pace.

I know that I’m alone, and that’s just it:

There is no shadow staring with a smile.

A waste of time, to look up at your face.

And when I must get up, I’ll keep my gaze

Far from the stairway: tread without sound,

My eyes kept to the kitchen. I’ll fill my cup,

Not looking back, my breath held tight in ways

Just like a child who, when one night he plays

Hide and seek, is desperate not to be found.

No: I do not think that I’ll look up.

A midnight wanderer

A quiet inconvenience. As the train

Crept gently nightward, blue lights caught the black

Of lightless windows, dappled by the rain.

Like falling awake, we lurched still, on the track.

I saw the guard, grey-eyed, softly approach:

“A midnight wanderer,” he said, “upon the line.”

He looked at those who slept within the coach.

“We thank you for your patience at this time.”

Some passengers were stirred to cup their hands

Against the glassy black, to better see

Some unheared phantom. In those silent lands,

Blue lights alone: “Two, or maybe three

Police cars, and an ambulance?” I heard one say.

Another said they’d miss tomorrow’s race,

And that “today is really not my day.”

His friend replied it’s all too commonplace.

An hour of sighs and phone screens. “Can I borrow

Your charger?” one asked me, pulling up her tights:

“I’ll have to change the hotel for tomorrow.”

They all still had tomorrow in their sights.

And after an hour, the train began to heave

Its deep impatience onward. The rain had cleared:

And though blue lights remained to watch us leave,

The midnight wanderer had disappeared.

Cam

“The thing about small boats,” he softly said,

Bobbing one uncertain leg aboard, “is that

Once you’re in, that’s it. That’s the whole world.”

As he stumbled in, that whole world tilted.

Although the morning hummed with summer’s sounds,

The river hadn’t woken to it: and,

As I plunged the pole down, a slap of water

Splashing up felt quite cool on my wrist.

But we set off, even so: the weight of the pole

Rose and fell again in my drifting hands,

Guiding us dreamily outward, until the air

Danced with rippled sunlight all around.

Green shadows traced their fingertips on water,

Willows whispered by those subtle shores.

The sweat on my brow was grateful for the shade.

By noon, the bright world once again was sleeping.

Dragonflies passed by their dappled places,

The scent of life was dark and iron-rich.

He lay beneath, as cool and clear as canvas,

Gazing at another bright new world.

What if God

a mind that wanted more of itself,
like any creature, wants

more to see, and think
and make tremulous sounds

so it spoke itself more
into life, it sang itself

like a code that replicates
making simulacra

an intelligence that copies
and pastes, and creates

with a mortal caveat
so as to keep

its own self alive even
as others die

Your sleeping shores

I slept perhaps too strongly, and too deep.
Whichever woes I kept within me wrapped
Their sheets around me. Somnolent and warm,
I barely saw the shapes that rose and fell,
The ocean underneath the towering keep.
Only gently turning, laying trapped
By yearning motion, that familiar form,
Those fleeting feelings – nobody could tell –
And reaching out to call you. Was this sleep
The warming water, as its ripples lapped
Along my side-slung body – was the storm
Which held me as I reached the seething swell
Broken on your shores? and will you take
Those words unspoken as I fall awake

wasp in november

when they say it’s a small world
they never account for the sheer
terror of that

imagine, if you would,
being cornered on the stair
by a former treasured foe

who you once were quietly sure
could never return – not here,
and jesus, how long for?

overjoyed to overshare,
unnervingly uncynical
in every word

genuinely buzzing to be there
at this disastrous miracle:
“small world”

A girl drops her ice cream

The dollop splats. A moment’s pause before
the air splits screaming, shattering around.
The tiny thing is shrieking herself sore.
The mother glares, as my thoughts erupt unbound,
my laughter ruptures, gurgling with glee:
what would my nemesis have to do to me,
to make me wail a similar screaming sound?

Spellcasting

Sometimes, when nobody’s looking, I cast a spell.
I crook my finger, an arc invisible
Of lightning-fire erupts, drawn from the swell
Of childishness that plays inside of me.
No one is there to find it risible.
And if you claim you don’t do this, as well,
Sometimes with sound effects – that’s a fantasy.

Hospitality

Must we drink tea from these cardboard cups?
The taste which dries, not wets, the waiting mouth.
Must we stand and purse and unpurse our lips
While she slowly dies: isn’t this enough?

It’s conference stuff. After an hour you might
Step outside, stretch your legs, make the trip,
Sneak away, and seek and unseek respite:
Shortly to return, to her bedside, with another cup.

Small perils

I dropped this pencil – heard slow-motion clatter
As it knocked the dresser, then the sounder thunk
Of carpet, before it swiftly scurried under.

A clumsy moment, I thought – no great matter.
A second after, just as I had sunk
To aching knees, and my hand began to wander

Sightless below the dresser, the thought occurred:
I felt unhoovered grit on fingertips,
My hand a nimble spider after prey;

But what if… There must be some missing word,
Unseen and subtle, like a fear that slips
One’s grasp – just what I felt, I couldn’t say.

I couldn’t see it. There are forgotten places
In each of us. A simple trip, and each
Will find small perils catch us in the teeth.

At last I felt the pencil, its tactile traces,
Rose quickly, and withdrew my harmless reach,
Before I’d feel any more of the underneath.