I breathe in the cool darkness
as if it were the breath of a lover
I have begun naming the stars
in the chorus each cricket
holds a night like this one in its legs
I keep this sky with a list
of star names -- burning
on wish paper
Fog
ome nights I walk out with the egrets
and the barn owl whose moon face
kachina eyes I have come to call friend
I pray for fog
something I can walk into
something I can disappear in
a fog where within I might change myself
tonight the stars are twinkling
I look for the small green one
the one I gave to a lover
Charles Atlas Reads A Book On Codependency
Atlas reads the chapters on detachment
and he thinks about it
and he gets his courage up
and he sets the world down
and he steps back away from it
and he tries not worry about it
he looks at something else
he feels so light
in body and heart
he remembers skipping
and in the park he swings
and smiles
he pets dogs
that do not follow him home
and writes a poem about grass
a bee stings him
and he does not think why me
nor saddened
by the bee's certain death
it has nothing to do with
who he is
he knows this is a good day
and there will be bad ones too
and in each he will do his best
and where he left it
the world begins to spin
Ray
It is July
I am thinking of that fishing trip
We surf fished and I got bored
Like any thirteen year old would
So I went walking down the shore, alone
Listening to the music of gulls
Wondering about fishing boats
What that would be like
Stopping to watch a Japanese
Fisherman snag a fight
He wrestled with rod and line
People began to crowd
Watching his struggle
Pulling, reeling and pulling again
Took a long time but he
Brought it in - a big ray
I'd never seen anything so beautiful
Brown, spotted marble magnificence
I knew he would release this
Majestic creature to freedom
It was a mistake to have caught it
The fisherman excited and lusty
Pulled up his armrest and with
Steady aim, speared the ray
Right through the middle
My nausea rising to my throat
I did not notice my tears
Perhaps he had been fishing for ray
Maybe the ray will make a proud meal
I shake my head and move away
Down the beach of gulls and fishermen
A fish is a fish, some would say
Did its exotic beauty
change my disposition
A perch never appeared that special
Some people eat dogs and horses
Or parrots and tigers
Food over beauty
--Nice to be at the top of the food chain
Walking back
The Japanese fishermen were gone
The ray was not
Flies and fleas had already begun
Eating at its wound
I touched its skin
Looking into its cloudy dead eye
And apologized
Could I have lifted its weight
I would have pulled it to the surf
It is July
The surgeon thousands of miles away
Is removing 12 long inches
Of your colon, to stop the cancer
I am not there to wait in a room
With my mother
For a surgeon who is late
I am not patrolling beaches
Saving rays, either
But I remember not saying anything
About that murdered ray
There have been so many things
Unsaid
Because that was the way of your house
Lonely unexpression
Chambers of silence
A calm surf
With signs posted everywhere
--Beware of rip-tide--
But Father, I will pray for you
I will say the words aloud
With pride and love
And express my fear for you