The Inferno
The worst part is the waiting.
People in line in front of you.
Papers to sign, financing.
Someone once said God must love
The common man because
He made so many. Yet here we are.
Maybe we get what we deserve.
Believing in this place, I'm told,
Constitutes a serious character flaw.
At any rate, advance reports
Have been misleading. There are no
Circles, just the tedium of hallways.
One door looks much like another
And the reception rooms stink
Of camphor and rubbing alcohol.
It's not as bad as it could be, I guess.
The vending machines have fresh milk
And the cashews are reasonable.
Still, sometimes I get lonely.
I long to run into family or friends,
Unexpectedly, like on a cruise.
But I know I am just being selfish.
You have to think these things through.
Once, a man wept for his little girl,
And she showed up. In her slippers.
-- first appeared in Willow Springs
Concerning the Naked Woman on Her Porch
The Greeks had a word for it, ate, a visitation
From the outside, the supernatural come to
Set up house in the middle of one's chest.
But she isn't much interested in terminology.
She is presently taken with the tulips just up
Beside the driveway, the petals on the stalks
Looking this way and that as though curious
About the movement of the world, the traffic
And the sparrows caught in their tantric spasms,
Their restless need to be in as many positions
As possible before the sun sets and the sycamore
Takes on the look of the dead. The peculiar thing
About ate was not that it made you behave
In irrational ways, trade your golden armor, say,
For some in bronze, but that it was alien,
A state that seemed to belong to someone else.
For the Greeks, then, the intellect was the Self,
And anything else was strange and unwelcome.
But the woman, standing as she is, wholly naked
On her porch, might quibble with strict formula.
The breeze, made cold by its long trip over lakes
And through the forest still littered with snow,
Ignites something like fire just beneath the skin
And wakes her to the possibility of becoming like
The birds, those same sparrows rummaging now
On the tops of houses and free to ascend a breeze
If they so desire, flight being the very emblem
And effect of this or any state worthy of our attention.
-- first appeared in The Midwest Quarterly
Night Song
The neighbor shouts,
And faintly, like something buried in the air itself,
There is a threat on her life.
At least these are the words
Of the baritone as I understand them.
I am upstairs,
In the bathroom, and I wish the light were off
So that I could turn it on.
There is a great deal of banging,
Fences and door frames,
And a car pulling away in the rain.
Frustrated violence.
All of which leaves me alone
With the question of my role.
I walk downstairs.
Jung is waiting on the couch
Where I left him
To re-consider his theory of the animus.
Maybe come up with something
That slops outside the lines,
That refuses to obey the rules
Like some child taking the obligatory test.
Third grade math.
There are nights
When nothing you do is right,
When contentment is a form of cowardice
And the radio is too loud.
My wife is convinced the neighbor
Is an exotic dancer,
A woman who bears what matters least,
A conclusion drawn
From the woman's hours and appearance, and maybe
My wife is right, but who can rejoice
In the powers of induction
When she is asleep, and I … well, I
Am in the company of others.
People I remember suddenly
And for no reason. The teacher
With the boil on his lip.
An uncle in thrall to the bottle. Salomé
And that head.
-- first appeared in Willow Springs
Six Kinds of Weather
1.
Today was the coldest day ever
In the month of July, at least
In this town which is shaped
Like a uterus or a spoon.
2.
I’m lonely. The gin stays
In a cabinet beneath the sink,
Beside the bread and the plums.
3.
The rain was splendid, warm
On the coldest day in July.
The rain showed its hip bones.
It danced in a tight dress.
4.
Official records start 1870.
Cloudy & mild, we’re dying.
5.
Today my neighbor overslept.
She blames the weather,
Says a mirror fell at work.
The sky looks like skin.
6.
My daughter is in school now.
She dreams she sees a rabbit
In the closet and another
On a boat on the ocean.
The wind is restless and warm.
My daughter eats plums
In her dreams and says
The weather is blue on tv
And patient and full of names.
-- first appeared in The Midwest Quarterly
