I don’t remember carrying you
home on the plane from Seoul,
crew dozing behind the cockpit door,
autopilot engaged—what were they dreaming of?
I don’t even know what shore
you washed up on: Busan, Incheon, Samcheok.
Are you glad we made you a home here so far
from the sea? is a question I won’t ask in case
your answer is the one you don’t want to give.
I love how perfectly you fit in my hand,
at first cold, and the way the morning looks
through you, as green and cloudy
as an unknown we no longer fear.
But I wouldn’t want to be held up
to the sun either, not because I’m a monster,
but because I, too, am translucent and trusting,
and mistake both for the truth.
Beneath our lives there are sordid undulations
and embraces brief and sweet,
a nearly invisible line connecting us to the fleet,
with every breath worth saving,
like the sip of air inside us
full of an old sea’s grace
or the ancient word hidden in our lungs
that once released back into the wild
will finally set us free.
What the Cold Wants
Complete mind control,
though it might begin Off-Broadway,
in a simple ceviche, or a mostly believable alibi.
Generally speaking, what the cold wants
is ridiculous. The problem with the cold
is that it comes from more of it.
It’s divisible only by one and itself.
The cold is not invited
to many weddings.
Among the cold’s lifetime
achievements: every touch
of a stethoscope, zero for twelve
from the beyond the arc, Shackleton’s last note.
According to experts, the average
temperature of the known universe
is negative 454.76 degrees Fahrenheit.
Room temperature is a miracle.
That’s what the cold wants you to believe,
that it’s perfectly normal
and should be allowed to feel
right at home as it slithers under a door
to begin making a meal of your toes.
Like a hungry predator, the cold knows
to save the warm, wet heart for last.
The cold is a form of surveillance.
Its primary ingredient is time.
Safe at headquarters, the scientist
listens to the batteries in the radio collar
slowly die, but she knows
the wolf is out there still.
From you, the cold wants nothing
but in.
Substitution
If only life weren’t so confusing.
If I can’t leave town with you,
here’s an old record instead.
I can’t miss anyone
who doesn’t adore Slim Gaillard.
At first I was sure
I was going to grow up to be a pilot.
Today I don’t know
who most of you people are—
and I thought I was God’s chosen creature!
Like the piglet raised by a farm cat
whose mission in life
has become sunning on the porch
and acting aloof,
maybe inside every hog is a kitten.
As inside every wide receiver is a ballerina,
and inside every ballerina a swan
who is really a banished tzarina
tending to her colony of bees.
Any sauce comes with a swap out,
each lunch sack its secrets,
overdressed greens instead of fries,
another poem made out of ideas, not things.
A whistle blows and Coach nods
at the skinny kid on the end of the bench.
The figure skater does a double
instead of a triple and loses a tenth.
The hydrogen nuclei fuse
and now it’s helium,
and when it fills the balloons
at the brat’s birthday
his aunt’s house doesn’t seem
so horrible anymore.
My heart is a jackrabbit.
There is no trick: the way to eat fire
is you just eat fire.
I Can Do It All in My Lifetime
If I were to say the subjunctive is indistinguishable
from the machinations of morning itself,
would that put me even more under its spell?
In the repair-shop garage, the most broken-down cars
sleep on the top bunk, while on the edge of town,
pylons trim the highway to one lane, stopping traffic
for miles, all for a steamroller abandoned in the rain.
It’s as close to forever as it’s possible to know.
Have you ever felt so alone that it was oddly also
impossible to be only yourself? Then you know
what it’s like to not have a name, only a sense of lightness
and a suspicion that everything is uncalled for,
and for reasons no one can understand we still believe
that for our children it will not be too late.
Ode to the Future
Of my people, it’s true, I imagine you
among them, which is as close as I get
to believing in heaven, so I’m not so alone.
Fuck this government. Fuck honey mustard.
Fuck the new advanced whitening formula.
If this is what I know, does it make me
anything more than another dumb pilgrim
who hasn’t lived through a single potato blight?
Lucky me, I rarely dream about the past,
nor have I reached the shore
of Great Conclusions, how long
will that last? I’m no more done with joy
than I am gravity, there are things
I’ll never let them take, there’s a photo
of my daughter locked inside a safe
behind a velvet painting
in the smoky backroom office of my skull.
It makes my head swell, as if everything is steamy,
or we’re on a schooner
without any knowledge of knots.
There are no do-overs, every moment arrives
with the sheen of the new,
so let’s make America a set of problems
we can admit exists again, and still have the will
to solve, we can get better at being alive,
you can learn a lot from being around horses,
you have to let the fury melt away
and stand in the sun.
Fickle Sun, Loyal Shadow
Another warm weekday waiting
for an alarm the firemen gossip
and wash their truck
a fresh breeze moves in
to shampoo our murmurs
language pays the world
lip service it’s impossible to get
the same haircut twice
in the hallway mirror
the ceiling fan spins
in the opposite direction
cooling the next world
My bugle knows how
to play one song
and it’s “Wake Up Motherfucker”
there’s a lesson in that
you have to perform
what you already are
you’ve got to shake that moneymaker
the microwave flashes 4:52 4:52 4:52
a memorial to its life’s great failure
I have one hypothesis
you have to be willing to start
with a guess
About heaven
I’m not so sure
&n
bsp; can it really be more beautiful
than light or breakfast
in the morning the firefighters
fill a steel dish with water
from a filthy hose
to leave it on the walk
for the neighborhood dogs
no one takes a drink
if you look down into the dish
it holds the sky
If I lean back far enough
and close my eyes I vanish
no one taught me how
I was trying to describe the taste of water
without eternity there is no hour
and without the hour no moment
to watch the wind move through
these trees like Texas politics
I’m trying to imagine a reason
to defend both sides in the new war
these homes don’t have cellars
the children are braver
Stepping outside feels
greedy like freckle season
is coming to an end
what have we been put on earth for
is not a dumb question it’s an invitation
for dumb answers
the longer the limousine
the less wealthy the passengers
the rudest diners
choose Sunday for brunch
I love you so much
our toothbrushes are touching
The garage door rises
but the great red truck
has already gone I have
yet to sleep in a bed
able to contain me
a knife that lands
with its blade in the earth
will make no enemies
promises use the exact same words
as lies I can throw
two kinds of shadows in Texas
too short and long
Is there any way to wake
other than alarmed
each scent is the memory
of a previous experience
the perfumist is a ghostwriter
for the air
always smell the left arm first
it’s closer to the heart
the fire department tried
to hire her she said no
unless you’re fighting
flowers
Is there any way to wake
other than disappointed
to speak the same language
as weather leads curtains
through another dress rehearsal
a magician licks his fingertips
the safecracker sands his down
learn to look down into the water
to love to see the sky
and you won’t fear loneliness
when the Forgetmenaut feels lonely
he looks up into his sky and sees us
There’s an old mirror
abandoned in the alley
displaying more alley
but significantly less sky
where a stray cat hidden
beneath a parked car knows
the whole world
is a thunderstorm
we’re ancient marine life
on the move we keep pulling
fish from the sea and still
the waters rise
The orange plyons
have been pulled from the street
the cell tower repair
allows the news to resume
its wicked speed down
at the playground the monkey
bars busy themselves dividing
sunlight into equal servings
the toothpaste manufacturer copyrights
Wintergreen and poetry shrugs
I won’t take no for an answer
I asked you if this will last forever
It rains and the firefighters
sense an irrelevance
they can remember the days
when one of them drove
the truck and another drove
the rear of the truck
each trained to turn the wheel
away from his colleague
is steering something the rain is
so too the sky and not having plans
with everything falling into place
solitude is something or is it fire
Few clues no real way
of knowing no news
from the Forgetmenaut
nothing in the mailbox
or reason to check twice
no sleeves to pull
our hands back into
during a gentle morning argument
no one able to lift their gaze
from their phone
that bird looks weird
the other bird sounds weird
Outside the fire station
the morning explodes into laundry
drying from a rusty chin-up bar
the Forgetmenaut wishes
he could see you too
air conditioner drips keep time
cell phones ping
with urgent insignificances
at the market a pickup truck drops
its ordinance of watermelons
next to a broken-down car
playing the role of Someday
I walked past the post office
on my way to walking
past the fire station
I can’t remember what it was
I urgently sent
myself into this world to do
the great red truck
is parked outside
on the driveway for a wash
they named it Engine No. 9
across both doors
we will never forget
This evening shows signs
of early onset darkness
we see ourselves
as others see us
in our laundry
the Forgetmenaut draws
an architecture of the infinite
inside her dresser a piano teacher
keeps a tiny glass bottle
and inside that glass bottle
baby teeth
Sunlight swallows succulents
the birds trapped in the airport
can’t fly on planes
I’ll be having the usual
as if it were ever my choice
I’m seceding from was
in order to form a more
perfect union with is
or could it be with will be
the blanket folded at the foot
of the bed is an understudy
for imminent change
I’ve decided I will king this block
they will greet us with sweets and flowers
the scene is best performed in the dark
the suitcase is empty beneath the bed
the Forgetmenaut reports
it all looks so fragile from space
I’ve lost sight of you shadow
saint of myself
the next indefinite article will play
the role of Object Approaching
a white bike chained to a red stop sign
we’re fools to think we can tame our ghosts
The fire station was constructed
when people and their things
were smaller though not fire
it’s still night and it has become
a still night the quiet sky
appears to hold one star
that’s technically a planet
it’s everything the Forgetmenaut
promised to us when the great
red truck backs into the garage
the ladder scrapes against the jamb
and makes a spark
Last night the firefighters forgot
to bring in the silver dish
from the sidewalk
it has become a bath
for birds while bees in the amaranth
do their morning work
&nbs
p; there have been signs all along
Rich Fernandez for Mayor
Kathie Tovo for City Council
Piano Lessons for Beginners
the sign warning of an approaching sign
reads STOP AHEAD
I’m one-thousand-and-one birds
a figment of your imagination
a shadow that glides over the street
the sun that pushes it along
into the next moment
where time discovers
a bit more self-confidence
and firefighters mow the station lawn
riding tiny red mowers
as if in practice
right thought write words right poem
innocence is not a victimless crime
This is yours and yours to keep
for as long as you care to remember
the Forgetmenaut can’t wipe
that look off his face it takes a lifetime
to remember being a person
is two-thirds being a pattern
the phone poles here T T T T
no longer carry conversation
though there’s still more to say
I want you to know I walked here
walked at one point through
a face full of bees
They’ve taken the trash
as far as the curb taken the pledge
as far as the flag I’ve taken
your advice and called mom
time will have its way
what we can’t see will save us
sometimes you have to walk
with a rock in your shoe to learn
they ran out of presidents to name
the streets after so now people
come and go among signs for trees
beginning with Ash
Goodnight moon goodnight Ash
goodnight great red truck
goodnight late capitalism goodnight Dallas
over Houston by seven in the third
goodnight CEOs giving
one another another raise
goodnight Forgetmenaut
making a last orbit of the house
sounds lost in the air
each tree dreaming
of outer space lowering itself to us
you try to name this or I will
When our great fire finally arrives
it will make no sound
I went outside to see if outside
was still around and it was
a lemon tree dressed in December ice
like a girl in her grandmother’s jewelry
you can say forget-me-not until it’s empty