First, Words Drop Like Overripe Fruit

First, words drop like overripe fruit
from the page, and the page turns to paper.

Then stories on television go—
all those faceless young fools

shuffled like a strobe-lit tarot.
Who can think with that nonsense going on?

We turn away and see nothing very much.
We listen closely to the air slide over our skin.

Now what, we ask no one,
as our feet like little soldiers

march into a room once silent
but now magnetized by a whisper:

Once upon a time
there was a little old man…

And even though we’re through with tales,
we open our mouths.  We listen.

We know how this one ends—
all happy deaths are alike—

but the plot is a page-turner
that grabs us by the throat. 

7/5/14

The Ambulance Howls

The Ambulance Howls

The ambulance howls
high and long—it’s on the scent.

We pull over and crouch
like terrified gazelles by the roadside.

Let it pass by.
Let it find some other tragic avenue.

Let it sniff around the alleys
in another part of town.

Let it turn the corner on a far road
where I don’t love anyone.

Let it hunt in the dead ends,
in the hidden cul-de-sacs,

on the abandoned boulevards
where weeds crack the pavement.

No one I know lives on that street.
Everyone I know lives on that street.

4-15-14

L. H. N.

L. H. N.

My dad had a tattoo on his forearm
inked in dark blue:  the letters L. H. N.
But since he didn’t have a middle name,
I asked, when I was thirteen and ready,

what H stood for.  “Hell,” he said, “or Heaven.
One night in the navy we got real drunk
and all got tattooed by some handsome guy
who asked what I wanted.  I said No hearts

and no flowers, just write my initials:
L. N., and the guy said ‘No middle name?’
Make it an H,  I told him with a grin,
and that’s how I learned my calling.

For not one of us knows our own true name
until a stranger writes it on our skin.”

At night like a hothouse

At night like a hothouse

At night like a hothouse I dream orchids.
Under a sheet, under the sky, under a spell,
I cup my ear to the door
(beyond that door another door)
and listen to my dreams tell me
what it means to wake up.
While on the other side of the door
someone else listens to my heart beat
and refuses, from compassion, to speak. 

7-7-14