For What It’s Worth
I’d repeat my sons exactly
as they are, even the one
with the now blue hair still asleep
at the foot of my bed. I’d repeat
the night I met my wife and even
the middle years of purgatorial sorrow.
Three times, at least, I’d repeat last
night’s sunset, of which I could see
a framed square of downy furrows
deepening from rose to bruise
while I sat in the filling tub, book
in hand, already part way out
of this world. Though it would not
bring me any joy at all, I would
repeat three times the day I did not
pull the trigger, or the day I almost
pushed the sharpest knife
we owned between my ribs.
Three times, at least, I would
enter the water, walking toward
the sun, the water needle cold,
all of it, in its own way, surging
toward an epic repetition—
I may be on the other side
of some things, but I have not
yet seen the longest night.
How to Love the Unfinished Dream
There it is again — that
little pop of possibility
sparking in my brain.
It’s an effervescent joy
I can map out fully
in my mind from blue-
prints to the manual.
I have all the tools
even & the know how.
O, what a bit of bare sky
& sun will do
to a winter mood.
It is the purest heaven —
& the only kind
I believe in: brief
& ending the very moment
awareness mounts
the stone staircase
of the mind. It was
good though, wasn’t it?
That little bite of bread
after so long without —
Four Years to the Day
but I am still crushed
by that old devotion to drink
to the dream of bitter floral notes
of hops in iced cups on repeat
the swoon of a binge
my daily homage
to the excess of nature
the overkill of spring
my immaculate tongue always
ready to indulge
the deluge of a want
I mislabeled need
even though years pass
in which I bow & bow
to nothing nothing
bows back
