Shatterproof

Past the island wreck and its spray of diamond-dust, 

that fine, green-edged glitter my tires crunched, 

I found you sitting on the Wendy's curb, fishing 

in your purse, in the shade of an unblemished SUV. 

That stalled rhinoceros, which struck you, jarred me.

What were you searching for? A key, a picture ID, 

or a name—knocked into chaos like so much loose change—

to hand the calm policeman standing over you? Glimpsing

your passenger door curled in on itself, I knew what had filled 

my usual view: A wall of sound and steel and flying stars.

Did time slow for you in that imploding fishbowl,

as you gripped the wheel tighter, fragments glinting in your hair

like fireflies? The world blinked. Moonlight on a lake of oil. 

When I tried to rub your shoulders, you said, “I’m really sore.”

So we waited for the wrecker, then waited some more. 

A week or so later, on our slow way home from dinner, 

you picked a crystal out of your purse to show me: 

“Our lucky star!” you laughed. I wanted to keep it, but before 

I could say so, you'd already tossed it out the window

onto a street studded with infinitely divisible sparks.

Previously appeared in The Southern Review

Why I’m Not a Golfer

for Dexter W. Haven

Grandpa's ashes are scattered in a sand trap

somewhere on a West Texas golf course.

A plume of sand and grandpa geysering:

“A geezer geyser,” he'd chime in, if he could. 

All his jokes held a grain of the ridiculous,

yet I can't help wondering what he meant

by his last, gentleman-widower's request. 

Maybe he wished to bequeath his cupful of dust,

his few remaining teeth to the game he loved:

a game which lent to those crazy years 

with Alzheimer's—“Old-timer's," he'd croak –

a semblance of peace. Still, in every divot, 

for me at least, a chromium baldness gleams. 

I can't help cringing at the thought of cleats,

and wedges sharp as prows, and old men's legs 

like Bermuda-wearing cottage cheeses

traipsing through what's left: his gritty end.

No redemption here but to drift and settle in, 

forever, over these rolling green expanses

designed by retired sportsmen, built on sand.

Taking the Shortcut

Beyond the Road Closed sign spray-painted “hi,”
I used to hear the gated beer truck coming,

empty kegs clanging as it rounded the bend,

crossed the tire-worn, skid-marked center line
to shave a second off their hectic errands.

Today, when I hike these curves, I take my time.
I know the dented, filled, and re-filled kegs 

will greet me when I arrive, late as usual,

for another beer-and-ibuprofen afternoon. 

All morning, in the loading dock, Zack and I 

will take turns smoking cigarettes and lounging,  

while the other dollies squat, steel barrels

two at a time, from Rent-A-Center’s back door

to our walk-in cooler, hunching-room-only.

Kegs block the ice machine, out of service.

Inside, our heads steam. We stack full barrels 

on the uncollected domes of wall-to-wall empties,

and if the hose reaches, we tap them there.

Our last resort's the pine shelves that complain.

And when a plank breaks—from the loading dock

I hear the crash—dropping a full Blue Moon

onto Zack’s neck, he will work until closing

with two cracked vertebrae. (At 3:00 am,

if he's thinking he'll quit, his x-ray clinches it.)

Hiking home, I step around the roadblock, 

which offers meek protection to fender-

nibbled curbs that crumble like feta, pause 

to watch a train moving mountains of coal 

through the viaduct’s bottomless pothole,

and keep going when the world stops trembling. 

--appears in the book by the author, Travel and Leisure.