How to Live
Depravity begins with thinking of love
as a radical act. I quit loving
with difficulty. I love
easy now. Two parakeets on my shoulders.
They'll fly away if I move. So I move.
I love flight. I love cages
left wide open. I am not a window.
I could be a window. Open me,
you'll find a dense wood,
children wandering inside it.
Not lost children. They know the way.
They live the way horses run.
If they each had a bird in hand
they would open their hands.
After the Holiday Party
Did my soul just unhook from my body
or was that your hand touching my arm
to steady yourself as you slipped
off your heels? I never noticed the body
-warmth radiating from a just-removed jacket,
the menu of wind winter slides under the door
to the new all night diner that's opening right now
under your blouse. I could eat.
Let’s take meaning off like clothes,
then take off our clothes too.
You are my music box on a bear rug,
my Lay-Z-Boy bungee-corded to a car roof.
Let me be your shelf of succulents,
your haunted shed in an unthreshed field,
the two pounds of sliced pineapple
you impulse purchased at the pharmacy.
Let's call the snow clapping
against the window the world's applause.
On the condensation let's draw
one hundred fire-breathing dragons.
Invisible Chorus
My daughter doesn't know what God is, an omission
I've encouraged by doing nothing about it.
Her great grandmother once gave her a lamb doll,
and when my daughter squeezes its hoof it leaks
"Jesus Loves Me," the lyrics to which my daughter thinks are:
Cheese is lovely this I know / with a big glass of merlot.
This isn't to say my daughter doesn't believe
in impossible things. She thinks
the lone fly droning around our kitchen
is the same fly from last month.
She's named it Bug-Bug; they're forever friends.
My daughter knows all about forever:
forever is a car ride, chicken nuggets
spinning in the microwave,
the space between the final July 4th explosion
and Halloween’s first poked doorbell.
My daughter doesn't know what God is so she doesn't know
what evil is either, hasn't learned forgiveness
as barter, that fault can be swapped for grace.
My daughter forgives, then asks if we can watch YouTube.
I'm trying to teach my daughter grace
is everywhere, which is why I think she leaves
bowls out in the rain, to give the rain a place to live,
leaves the back door open in case the storm wants to come in.
My daughter doesn’t know what God is
so she hasn’t learned reverence.
At her great grandmother's wake
we put her down for a nap in an empty parlor,
me on the carpeted floor, her head in my lap,
the light blue as the dreams of snow. But she couldn't sleep.
She kept asking who the people were
gathered around us.
My daughter wanted to know why
they were all singing.
