Carouseling in a circular nowhere,
dizzy dream mannikins bob woodenly
on splintering steeds of washed-out gray.
In a small-town amusement park beneath
a mobile of cardboard stars, lipsticked ladies
mouth the whistling strains of an offstage
calliope while a billboard swinging
from the highwires is an excuse note
penned by the absent barker's mother.

No one will herald main events tonight.
Unannounced, a troupe of sleep minutes parade
in Lenten masquerade as if awake,
then whirling cartwheels in mid-air
they tick away, but in the stands only
the two of me cheer it all as gospel truth.
These are small hours within a smaller lifetime,
bedtime hours meant to be forgotten:
Dream time in a space of timeless vertigo.

"Transformation"

Today I gave my father back his face,
Returned dark brown eyes, a voice,
Greying hair, that smile lost in time.
I lifted him from the flatness of a photgraph,
Brought his appearance into focus
So that in his familiar shape and form
He would somehow come to life.
Why punish myself like that?
Why disturb him from a decade's sleep?

At Sunday mass during the consecration
I should have contemplated Christ's Passion.
Instead I resurrected my father--not his ghost!
The flesh and blood of him! The father
I had kept at bay since death, his face
Freed from the stillness of photographs,
I had allowed my mind to conjure dangerously:
A likeness much too painful to recall.
But I was lonely; I missed him.

All at once, ashamed of my irreverence,
Afraid my prayer would be answered,
I blurred the vision of his transformation
Except for a hand waving in misting memory,
Except for the voice of that gentle father spirit
Attempting to speak words of forgiveness
To a son tottering between wishing him and wishing
Him away. Then an old photograph circa 1952
Flashed in my memory: on a porch a young boy and his father.
It is summertime forever. The sun is shining. They smile.

Poetry Magazine