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Middle-Aged
Karaoke
A
big woman jumps
out
of a booth
deftly,
avoiding
tabletop
and plastic
vines
behind her head.
In
the chrome diner
she
sways at a microphone
singing
"Daydream Believer,"
The
Monkees' best song.
She's
a slow tsunami,
same
as me, though I sway
sitting
down, enervated
by
many drinks. Her friend
--a
girls' night out--
closes
the paper umbrella
above
the rim of a mug
and
waits her turn.
I
envy their courage.
It's
early evening.
I'm
the only one watching.
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Spillway
I
can't lift beers--I can't
drink
without spilling.
When
beer runs out my mouth
down
my chin
to
soak absorbent cotton
--I
know I'm alive.
I
do it for freedom, asserting
presence,
reaction.
Anger too
explains
the decisive quality
of
such joy. Teeth clenched
and
abraded by day
are
raised and open at night
beneath
the cans.
Such
rebellion is small, a fit
for
democracy.
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Ode
to the Legend Itself
or
Jimmy Pichford
The
mean guy entered
the
sporting goods with stories around him
like
a snarl of Dobermans
leashed
to his fists. Black discs
a
little bigger than eyes--his sunglasses
distilled
menace against the pale expanse of his face
while
I folded shirts
and
peeked. Jimmy had the world framed
in
those glasses--in sinister, circular
perfection.
They seemed to motor him, his bulk
stretching
a sweaty undershirt
to
the limit, overhanging
dirty
white shorts--not as funny
as
it should have been. I forgot to mention
the
immensity
of
his emergence from a tiny MG
with
top down. He walked with grace
on
his way to the door: poise
of
the absolute. Above his sandals, summer itself
lay
in fear--a shivering glare.
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The
Bosses
Those
you envy
stare
first
at
animal heads
mounted
above the door
then
drop their eyes
on
you,
looking
for purity. The soft
killer
tapping
of
their fingertips
on
palm computers
spells
your name.
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Corrupt
Administrators
We
know you're the polar regions,
hugely
expanded
on
a flat map,
or digital
squeal,
a
malfunctioning
answering
machine--
what
were you
before?
Does the word choice
inhabit
your character?
People
worry
about
their futures
under
your shadows. You've hoarded
a
lifetime of slights
and
harnessed
a
subtle intelligence
for
potion and power--
we
call it spin.
We buy it or
lose,
and lose by
choice.
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Road
Cut
exposed
by demolition
Dad,
here's a design once pounded by winds,
its life taken by
minerals --
a fern you'd find in any wet woods, except the
skilled
rock that explains it.
Perhaps now you're located to
know
how sky resembled blue-grey shale
after
the asteroid hit Yucatan.
~
One Sunday he
pretended -- too much
hesitance, too much effort
on display. He
knew it was the
last time
before
I knew it, the smile on his face
both acted and felt,
the anxiety
a templet --
the hospital room won't leave my mind
(window, light, five people,
the terrible matte texture
of space itself),
a dwelling for many years -- not every day,
just off and
on like long-wave peaks from a resting brain
hooked to an EEG.
I've tried often to put myself in his place,
to
understand his trial, his mind
with body stuck on a
bed,
trying to think
beyond the limits
of empathy, in
order to carry him forward.
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