“By the seventeenth year of mortgage your eyes are pried
permanently open. There will be, of course, those moments of Rapid
Eye Movement, the scent of ripe
misfortunes being aired
each month when the paycheck arrives. But no bank would dare
admit that the more you stash the more they raid.
Wealth is founded only on the idea
of wealth. The palm is not a book that should be read
but shut. (My dad told me this & sighed.) The only permanence is the steady drip
of debt. When you pay them, Son, relish the split second of pride
before the mule throws you from the ride.”

saintly

saintly

What the Bible said. A satin
cassock. A tail
that never drags in the dirt. No nasty
acne. No yellowed armpit stain.
& no nails
in the hands & feet. No salt
in the wound. Just satiny
sanity. No narrow slit
to stick the tongue through. No tiny
pin pecks for eyes. No last
minute pleas to be added to the list.

segregate

segregate

On the first morning of school there is a young tree
frog waiting patiently at the front gate.
Since this means there will be no classes for the rest
of the day, the children dump their school gear
in their lockers & hustle to the windows to stare.
The girls are eager to transform him with a kiss; the boys eager
to see him on the basketball court. But their principal greets
him with a “Get the Hell out of here!” A security guard fetches the tear
gas. Some of the older teachers crowd in the doorway like befuddled geese.
“You belong in our swamps not our schools!” they rage.
But clearly the cool-blooded Amphibian-American does not agree.

stupor

stupor

Because sooner or later it will all go sour,
the two of you whipped by the sport
of high-ball & boogie, that Don’t stop
til you get enough rhythm reduced to a spot
on the tongue. Love or anger might sprout
from her throat & worse than the waters of Port
Hangover will be your need to tour
her face for some sort
of Oh-never-mind-last-night’s-spur
of-the-moment-sex expression. Drunk or not, Boy, let the spurt
of cold water pour
ing from her bathroom spigot, slap you awake like a strāp.

toenails

toenails

They can be shellacked to shine like satin.
They can steal
the light of Tinsel
Town. A woman moseying down the aisle
of a supermarket. Their gleam isn’t
lost
in the dark nest
of a shoe. Each toe holds a slate
upon which a lover’s note
is written. Or each toe is a window his nose
is pressed into.

V. The Law of Falling & Catching Up

V. The Law of Falling & Catching Up

FIRE

FIRE

It was not smoke rising from the mouth
of a woman in search of her daughter,
nor the straw slipper left on the trampled path

that I remembered. I saw nothing.
Hair covered my eyes, & in the dream
I could not close my mouth. Mostly

it smelled of salt and the diligence
of shipbuilders. Occasionally, I’d hear
my brother groan beneath my footsteps.

There was the calm & discretion
of giving up. The roof.
Boards yielding sap and splinters.