Day 1
You and You
I have the two of you, both
lovely men — one now, one then.
I could never leave you or you
so I keep you, each in a separate
chamber of my heart; the you of then
pushes the blood of love through
to the you of now, partners
in the crime of loving me, sending
a pulse through my vessels, you
whose great kisses beg me go
again and again, like the morning
glory opens and opens until the sun
is too high to reach the petals,
and the bloom, mourning and glorious
for love, closes it chambers.
Day 2
Nothing Much
Factoring, cosines, primes —
nothing much to poets
who deal in image, sound,
iambs, line. It’s a fact
or is it, that some have the gene
for math and some don’t,
some have meter
in their heads from birth.
We ought to celebrate
the decline of language some say,
the rise of text-speech, memes,
the death of grammar rules,
celebrate the passing of spelling,
the demise of formal verse.
But would those mourners hold
a wake for mathematics?
What if Pi no longer equalled
3.1459 to infinity? How would
boy scouts pitch their tents
if the angles of triangles
no longer equalled whatever
they equal?
Everyone doesn’t need
to attend the same celebration.
Go to the party where they serve Pi
if you must. I’ll wait outside
composing 3 stanzas of 14 lines.
Day 3
On His Birthday, Hats Off
to Larry, he broke my heart
by dying young, his heart
broken like a clock, gears
and springs flying out of the case
against the floor, crystal face cracked
from 12 to 4 like a lightning bolt
sears the night sky. Each October 3rd
I spend some tears, write him
a note I’ll never mail, pause
to touch the lips he touched when
no one had died or left love’s pulse
behind. If there is heaven
some kind of lofty perch where loves
can see what came to be because of them,
surely he celebrates the kisses
he taught me to give and get
those days in his sister’s room
at the top of the stairs. If there be hell,
then it is a world where kissing
has been relegated to nothing more
than foreplay or conquest. Larry, hats off
to you, on this birthday as I touch my lips,
feel the happiness you planted.
Day 4
When it’s dark
in Maine, it’s not dark
enough to swallow sounds:
footfall of the fox, lowering
of antlers at the pool,
folding of feathers as jays settle
to sleep. Your own heart
settles too, folds its valves
over and over, blood shushing
along the highway of your body.
Traffic hums far over on the road
that leads into the city
where light and noise never end.
I choose dark, the barest of stars
above me, too far away to count.
If there is to be light, let it slide
across the floor at dawn,
light that wakes me feet first.
Let it make no sound.
Day 5
A Philosophical Trilogy
1
de Beauvoir’s Mystery
In grey reflecting pools, the mystery
grows and grows, like a rancid lily dangles
from its pulled root. Angels fly and dip
their toes and men fear the shadows
of their homely cotton wings, patched
like denim knees. Angels are not slaves
to the Pharisees who beat their breasts,
then visit local prostitutes.
2
Bordo Refuses Botox At the Gym
Barbie tells Ken to get lost, to erase her
from his little black book. She gives back
the thong panties he bought — three sizes
too small for her hips. Behind the lockers,
at the 24-hour gym, a tall Swedish
personal trainer offers her Botox.
She crinkles her laugh lines at him
on purpose and hands over the keys
to her pink plastic convertible.
3
Harraway’s Body
Part woman, part writer, part brain,
part blurry lines in the sand where man
has built his castle and his servants’ machines.
Not black or white, slave or free, just cyborgian
analyst with a pen that writes in four-colored ink.
Thoroughly changed creation, clicking your dentures
and squinting through cadaver-donated corneas,
what do you see in your silver-backed mirror?
Day 6
In Absence of Sound
Sit. Open your hands.
Feel air in your ears. Smell
rustling leaves as they drift
from the maple in your yard.
A bell rings a mile away
at the church where vespers
are chanted. Extend
your arms to gather the chuckle
of nesting jays in the forsythia.
Bring in every grass whispering
by the road, take all the silence
and play its melody against the sky.
Day 7
I Suppose
I suppose hunger
could make a bird give up heaven,
make it dizzy the surface of the sea
looking for a meal. I suppose
it could hobble along the drafts,
brief beautiful pose on air
that won’t stop the plunge, the dash
onto the cliffs. I suppose hunger
could sear the skin from inside its beak,
make its wings weak enough to fall like Icarus.
Mothers at the back doors of churches,
pray for groceries, do not see God
or grow the wings of angels. Daedalus
could not prevent his son’s fall.
I suppose that kind of hunger
could make a boy give up heaven.
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