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.
Young and In Love
I don't know how to do anything
well. That includes dying. But
I can tell you there's a door in laughter.
It shimmers like the first five seconds
after you take your shirt off
in front of someone for the first time.
I keep the keys on a keyring
in my teeth. If you want them,
please, come and get them.
Insomnia
Some nights she’s an apparition
darkening the hallway, floorboards
beneath her feet grieving.
Usually, she pipettes into my ear
what’s keeping her awake:
shin bones aching,
white horses neighing
ride away with me, stuffed
bears snared in quicksand sheets.
She climbs into the crucible
between my wife and me, folds
her body into our breathing.
All night her legs twist
like worn keys, sleep’s tumblers
just out of reach.
Pre-dawn, when I lurch out of bed,
she rolls into the warmth I’ve shed
and watches me open
dark’s door.
This final lesson
I give to her early:
when I leave
there will be light
where I used to be.
The Widower
In the middle of my yard my neighbor gapes
at the moon, which roars
loud as a lighthouse beam
bleaching the peninsula.
I want to show off, I tell him it’s a rare lunar eclipse,
a "Beaver Moon,"
and if you ever want to lose your mind
repeat "Beaver Moon" a dozen times
to an 80-year-old
("What?")
taking out the trash. My neighbor turns,
light like sawdust
onto a workshop floor
settling on his back.
Is it sadness
or is it hope you feel
watching a paper boat
twist along a river dark?
Happy Men
There are happy men in the world
I have seen them dance badly
at weddings in grocery aisles thronged at sports stadiums
Sometimes you find them at the bottoms of pools
If you dive in they give you a thumbs up
I don't know why some people hate them
I don’t know how happy men stitch quilts from laughter
Once I touched a happy man's belly
AAAAand his skin began to glow
It was snowing he put me in his sidecar
and drove until the mountains gave up on us
Once I saw a happy man slip out of his happiness
A dozen other happy men gathered around him
They made for him a hairy palanquin out of their arms
Us onlookers vibrated from falling so swiftly in love
Even the sky toppled into a shade of pink
The happy men marched to the ocean pier
Light papered their shoulders like it does with bells
Sometimes to watch, to listen is a religion
My favorite hymn is the way happy men sing
until you cannot tell them apart
Night Rain
Like the first gods
emerging from the surf
the dogwoods shed
droplets of light.
And the puddles—they're silver
keys on the clarinet of our street.
Why should we close the windows
the way we close our minds
to thoughts of death.
Let this little dark,
this humble wet
shiver into our room.
Without silence
there is no music.
Let the silence
come.