Among the Grave

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somewhere in the bowels of the NIH there are tiny, fragile pig-children

Spun from the DNA of “us” and “them”

Which reminds me of a story—

Once there were these two guys

Who let iterations and outlines of darkness

Into every corner of their very own souls

(Whatever that is, right?)

Only to find their place among the dead

Until…

Love walked in

Dispelled the ghosts of men into the

Real and understandably alarmed 

Sea of pigs

Who then chose death over the dark wraiths of men

Sometimes I ask myself

What happened to those panicked pigs?

Did they find the eternal?

And what about these new unconsenting

children of a lonely room

Half-pig, half-child 

Will they be allowed to

Escape the grave

And, with no help from their human side

Find rest for their weary souls

the smallest boat in the world

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i fish it out of the no-man’s land 

beneath the back-back seat 

momentarily mistake it for detritus

before realizing 

it is the smallest boat in the world

dime-sized fighting ship

speculate about the shipbuilder

know the whole

time the real problem

yet to be addressed-

was it always this small?  

life’s work of tiny men?

or was it once a real boat

whittled down to this diminution

by years and years of sturm and drang

in this teacup full of sea.

What if the Universe was trying to get your attention?

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What if the universe was actually 

Trying to get your attention?

You know, metonymically speaking,

Where “the universe” is a beat-up van

Driven by a pretty 

unassuming God

And you were one of those garden variety types

unswervingly ignoring

all the signs:

Birds singing

Lovely sunsets

Oddball prophets

Always making the assumption 

Who would want to get in that old thing?

Mistaking stellar lights for cosmic accidents

And personal missives for junk mail screeds

thereby missing

The extraordinary, temporal

Vehicle for undying love

As it slowly passed you by.

The Primitive Streak

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What are you doing up so late, little one? 

Awake among the Petri dishes 

No place for children

Where is your mother? Your father?

Do you mean to tell me

These nice-looking men in lab coats

Are the only parents you know 

As your filigree DNA unfolds they peer

Into this sterile womb

Strain to catch a glimpse of 

Your nascent primitive streak

Unwilling to admit it is theirs 

We all fear

Brace yourself

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Comfort girl myself

I rifle through the postcards from

The places you have been 

Looking for things you loved

Always people, always broken 

Then strain to hear your voice 

As you tell them about the Luke 13 people

All dead, all tragic until you

direct our eyes into the deep

Pool of Siloam, reflected the tower before it fell?

Did the blind man know it was there before he could

See you standing there

Across the street from all my loneliness

Beckon me come close

Brace yourself, Love

Missing Juan Cazorla

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on the day I tell my daughter it is 

mourning dove with a “u”

I remember you are gone

And count the things I used to say

About your father, your brothers

All named the same

(Like all those George Formans)

I still do not 

Know which fight you lost 

Left to

Cut through the jungle path 

To the sea, to the sea serpent country 

where we were young 

all together.

Paper Crowns

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Last spring I sheared my own crown, playing both the sheep and the shepherd in a one-woman show about redemption.

The thing is:

You can’t redeem yourself, no matter what lovely poetic last

Name you have been given.

I see the boy you used to be

I see the lost in your eyes

Playing both sheep and shepherd in your own one-man show about…

I will always love you.

Who says that and means it?

Not me.  I am a coward who cannot handle her always

Ten years since he died

And I stand in the dollar store conjuring up themes for a party girl

Bikini contestant party girl

Written in permanent marker

The lost in their eyes, the voice in my head

Man who played both the sheep and the

Shepherd in his own one-man redemption show

Thorns for crowns/ Paper crowns/diadems, tiaras 

For the children we will be

At the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Letter to the boy with the unstoppable heart

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Tell the inhabitants of this broke-down place

new sheriff in town…

who so resembles the

wise child posed

Years ago in a picture 

Beneath this ink-blue-night-sky sombrero,

Clark Gable mustache, glint of forever in your eyes

As this endless tide rakes an uneven shore

As words fail to form the adequate cup for sorrow

You go on-

Unstoppable heart.

Boy with the unstoppable 

Heart.

Dissembling Wrong

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So close

to a reclusive keeper

of memories, of wrongs

Shuffling among the forgotten objects

Placeholders for the barely living:

anonymous empty

water bottles, hollow and crumpled

Become the jury

Old newspapers still swaddled in

Their plastic rain protectors

Told to be 

Witnesses or spectators

Instructed to rise 

As a one-armed nutcracker assumes the bench

Rag doll court reporter records the proceedings 

Mr. Vinegar prosecutes while

the defense attorney was appointed from among the 

A pantheon of generic

Happy Meal toys.

But the victims are living songbirds

Twittering in the disheveled

cage of my heart of course

Always re-animating  dried bones-

Off-kilter, neglected, wrongs

Will inexorably be

Radically, fundamentally transformed

When the true King

Calls them back

To life

Break-up Songs (for babies)

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in the space of no more than

Half-an-hour

someone steals his little shoes

dear to him/dear to us

Still, just shoes.

At the scene of the crime we

Call their names

Thinking whoever did this has to  love them 

Must have loved them

Oh.  This song I know the words by heart

Sang it all those years ago

With all the other sodden

Unbearable

Break up songs for babies.