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The talk is endlessly repeated, again today. The newspaper
says a gymnast was paralyzed.
We imagine the tragedy transplanted to suburbia.
The pain is endlessly shared,
in immediate conversation, like the repetitious song
of the cheating man's wife and the mandatory gloat
at her vindication. And equally prevalent
the talk of cleaning leaves
from the gutter, planting azaleas,
buying new pets, cooking and baking.
Somewhere in the midst of this maybe
once in a while someone understands
that to watch the agile monkey swinging
branch to branch through the forest
is to watch the monkey carefully
and to see
that you are watching
the monkey
and to know
that while you plant azaleas,
clean gutters, acquire pets and property,
and talk of paralysis
as if it the possibility
just struck you -
you are after all
the monkey.
The branch!
The next branch!
Teeth In Your Mouth
While there is still
flesh to hold us,
let me make this toast:
To the breeze, the scent
of lawnmower gasoline
and sweet shorn grass
and the tear for youth it fuels,
and the skeleton of your teeth
grinning bravely at echos
of a time that seems alive,
grinning as if
it could save face.
I lift my toast
with this hand
that still has flesh to raise
A Day Off, In Bright Sunlight
Trying to rid myself
of what I revolve around.
Keep pouring oil for the skin,
beer for the soul,
the lubricants that distance
the false fires I follow.
And while I develop
a tan and a thick skin,
there's something here with me,
slithering like a lizard
under a cool rock, or an eel
a wave in its own segment of sea.
Something I can't get beyond,
blissfully warm I am in cold
elliptical orbit, almost pulling loose
then showing the comet's
tail-turning loyalty
to its gradually destructive sun.
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