God knows I didn't
invent them I can only
imagine the soft

white mouth-parts
of the maggot taking into itself
the decaying matter

around the wound
never the good tissue
that will perform

the ordinary miracle
of renewing itself over
and over again every

seven years the hair
the fingernails the delicate
lenses of the eye

no the maggot feeds
purely on putrefaction
despised outcast

whose only lawful
employment is carrying
away the garbage

who dreams of
islands of health in a
sea of corruption


who hums as he
shoulders the stinking bags
a little song without

words my job to
find the right words and cobble
them together

his work much
closer to the bone
housewife of the world
he cleans cleans cleans

The Hum People
(for Kathy Marin)

So somber in your red
pill box hat against
a background of lugubrious
black oils, your painted face
pressed against the picture
plane the face of a child
unable to leave the house.
for reasons that remain
a mystery. She cannot join
her friends at play or holler
out the window or hear
them shout with glee though
she leans forward in breathless
expectation, holding the words
like marbles behind her lips.
You see some amaryllis that you
want to sketch--

I want to get that one
and this one is so different
and lively, I don't want
to miss it--What will happen
is that I will get none of them

Your sleepless eyes--those
innocent animals I call to
softly--follow my young
daughter from room to room,
your face slides off the wall,
becomes a presence and gives
birth to other presences, the
hum people, or the “hums”
as my daughter will call them
later when she gets to know
them well, beings created from
the need of the imagination
to scare itself.

I have a feeling that if I
don't grab at everything
I will miss so much of
what I want if I only
have a short time to live

They never spoke. Sly
as they were shy, they
crowded around her like
cows, helpless with curiosity,
approaching an electric
fence. They followed her
downstairs, past the woodcut
of your woman's body showing
the life you had grown into, the
dark buds on the unsupported
breasts, the carved hairs of the lap,
even the scars on the white belly
from a childhood accident, a fire.
Still more hums were begotten.
We had to shoo them away
at lunch, they stood around
so close.

But living in a panic is no
way to live. I must decide
what is important and enjoy
those things and let the others
go. I am so lucky . . .

And now you are gone
leaving behind you your several
bodies, husks of dried paint, lively
presences, a wandering nation
of forlorn hum people, some
wearing a red hat or one red shoe
and my daughter, all dressed up
in the body of a young woman
waiting for spring to blossom.

I feel in such a hurry.
I have these four amaryllis that
have such exciting attitudes
I want to capture before they die

Poetry Magazine