I really don't want to be
a man walking his dog
or the dog.
Maybe the pink tongue.
How much better to not know
you have imbibed what will lead you
to Fate in her blue silk gown, as
you travel your last dark ride.
To not be able to close your eyes

and see, again and again, the
last page turn on the Far Side's
calendar, the last blink of red
neon, Too late, Too late, tiny
tastebuds only know the gritty
gladness of slaked thirst.

Survey Party

the sign read. I wanted to go
wanted to be part of,
wanted to survey the lay of the land,

damage caused by flying rocks, soil
erosion. Wanted to help
hold the map shoulder

to shoulder with a man
whose face echoed the terrain.
Wanted to take long strides

across quiet plains, peer
through scopes, watch lines
dissemble, then intersect,

place markers there
between elm and mulberry,
and there next to the birch.

Wanted to determine where
some stranger would stake
a claim, pronounce, This is my land,

while the party moved on,
looking for another good time.
The future a small, clear globe.

I Loved You Wildly In Those Days

when the whiskey drenched air
made getting out of bed more painful
than tooth extraction or dancing with the dead.
In your arms I discovered ease and your face
between my hands allowed me to forget
bitter plums left too long on the shelf.

When was it I began to watch the rain
instead of listening for your voice? When was it
that I lost the need to have you warm my cold feet?
How strange it seems, after loving you so hard
and long, that our lips meeting was not enough.
When you left I thought the sun should have gone

rogue at least for the day, the moon should have blazed
bloody to the tune of your steps walking out the door,
down the street, away. Now there is no horizon in view.
Only this house, a child, and at the door, the chitter of weasels.

Icing

I dreamed of you last night sitting smug
between a cherry cheese cake and mountains
of white wedding cake. You wouldn't

let me have any though you'd offer
then snatch the morsel away when I bit.
You enter my dreams, an errant baker,

not a groom. I want us to stand atop
that cake, your top hat tipped, me
on your arm dressed in white,

ready with bouquets to throw
some other miniature maiden.
Wife, the name I want to savor

as it rolls from your mouth: wife, my wife.
Instead, I dream sugar mountains, wake sticky.
Unleavened batter swells my tongue.

Music of the Spheres

All that I own
I carry with me.
St. Anthony (c.250-356)

If we decide to live in this house,
this town, this country until we die,
we will need different eyes to look
upon the furniture, different hands

to care for our belongings. We will
need St. Anthony or a housewife
of his century to tell us, careful
do not scratch that chair, take care

when handling that dish. We will need
their reminders to show us some things
cannot be replaced. We will need different
fingers to touch chairbacks, dishes in the sink.

Our nails will have to be pared, polished,
half-moons pearled from vitamins
we must take, nutritious food we eat.
When deep in sleep we will not

thrash around with moans and twitching
appendages in fear of waking to sirens,
to the radio's one minute forewarning
of blackened loved ones shadowed on bedroom

walls. We will need different foot
falls, kinder steps to walk through rooms
and halls. Noise will have to decibel
lessen for echoes of traditions we

establish for our children's children.
Only then will they hear our voices
in dust-moted air when sunlight prisms
through window casements. Beeps, blips,




grunts, groans, all mottled machinations
of engines will be kept in the storage shed.
Silence will allow us to know our hearts'
content. Do you feel we live in an orderly

universe? will not be a question we utter
in this house. Words will be foundations.
Music will have nothing to do with
rocks, moss or strangled turbulence.

Paper not plastic will line our shelves. String
shall be saved. Small planets of green, blue,
purple will circle our walls when the sun peaks
through bottles saved on window sills.

The walls themselves will bask in smells
of fresh-baked loaves, stewed tomatoes,
puddles of candle wax. We will need
the sensibilities of the second

century monk or housewife, people
who revered shaped wood, a home's solid
foundation, who held wonder at each dawn's
breath, people who treasured the power

of God, decorated their homes with martyrs
and madonnas, who knew the music of spheres,
as they entered night's threshold,
they crossed themselves not once but thrice.

Poetry Magazine