but there’s only so much to extinguish
while remaining present enough
to see the job through
a child arrives for a lesson the teacher
knows the piano does all the teaching
Inside the Compulsion to Wonder Lurks the Will to Survive
Once awake, I tend to like it.
A puddle can recognize me. Then I look up
and I’m as anonymous as the sky.
And yet, in my hands, this terrible orb glows.
The ships, it reports, can now sail
straight through the Arctic, filthy bears
clinging to shriveling rafts of ice.
Tell me the truth, what does anyone care
inside the barber shop this morning
where everyone wants the regular again,
combs swimming in little blue aquariums.
What if this isn’t late capitalism, but early?
One idea is to set the clocks ahead
one hour so we’re closer to knowing
how it turns out. Another is the Roman ides,
or the 72 kō of Japan. Mist starts to linger.
Great rains sometimes fall.
The Buddhists have a word for it,
but the moment it’s defined,
the thing itself vanishes.
The more we ask of this world
rises up through us, like an evaporation.
When I asked you what day it was,
you said the day after yesterday.
No matter where we move the glass vase,
it leaves a ring.
Everything I’ve Learned So Far
Isn’t it so Norway
the way the snow falls
slowly on the freeway,
low lights traffic hum
inching along
with the inevitability
of an aging democracy.
Like a fury surrendering to
a stillness we’ve never known,
like our favorite movie,
or the invention of braille,
abstract expressionism,
and the full-court press.
It all belongs to us now:
panthers sad
we call them tigers,
moms sad
we don’t call them much at all.
All house flies buzz in the key of F.
It’s unknown how long
a lobster can live.
Puppies stop being cute at two.
I have no problem wearing lipstick
so long as I can apply it
using your mouth.
You can close your eyes
and place a sugar cube
on your tongue
and swear you’ve tasted a star.
Whatever happens next,
wave your little wand,
claim magic.
Selected Poems
Poem with Its Fist Raised
Poem Composed of Ash and Bone
Poem Etched in Marble
—in Repose
—with Plum Blossoms and Birds
—with a Sword in Its Mouth
Poem in a Summer Kimono
Poem, Silver Comb and Pin
Study for a Poem
Poem with a Partially Obstructed View of the Academy
[Not on View]
[On Loan]
[Removed for Cleaning]
Poem (“I’ll Read Two More”)
Poem of St. Paul with a Book and a Candle Facing Away from the Door
Poem in Black Ink, Brush and Gray Wash on Paper, Incised for Transfer onto Linen, and Presented on a Panel
Poem Partially Composed over an Older Poem
Poem (Fragment)
Poem (Shard)
Poem (Relic)
Poem (Paperweight)
Poem (Apology)
Poem Whispered While Being Blown into Molten Glass, Then Shattered
—in Black Gloves and Edwardian Evening Ensemble
—with a Porcelain Cover
—with Eight Views from The Tale of Genji
Poem [Unclaimed, Undated, and Unfinished]
Poem Approaching the End
Poem with the Words Left Out
—with the Words Put Back In
Poem Attributed to a 16th Century Flemish Poet
Poem [Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harold M. Cartwright]
Poem That Sounds Suspiciously Familiar
Poem Seen from Behind
Poem in Profile, Adorned with Silk Scarving, Looking Thoughtfully into the Distance, Chin Resting on Fist
Why I Don’t Have Any Tattoos
I’m still here trying to get it right.
Now that there’s enough slow
evening snow to allow
a streetlamp to steal a scene,
but like its glow, even that thought
only goes so far.
The tired Chinese restaurants
on Lake Street closed at nine,
which is so Midwestern of them.
It may be too late for history but not luck,
a scratch-off ticket from SuperAmerica
where SuperMom’s coffee
is 49 cents with gas, snow
hitting my face
like the needles touching down
on the skin of the invincible
inside Leviticus Tattoos.
Already I’m a blue butterfly
landing on your shoulder blade,
I’m a bald eagle carrying lightning bolts
across my chest. At some point
I’m going to rise up
into these trees and turn gold.
What I thought I needed
seems so far away and harmless,
there isn’t anything
I’d throw away or give back,
and the nights are getting shorter now,
which is a start.
The Impossibility of Sending You a Postcard from Mumbai
It’s the swirling way this red boat circles
its mooring and gently knocks,
leaving no mark on the world.
As dependably as these letters appear
then begin to vanish like the decoded glyphs
of ancient Hindi tablets, chiseled from cliffs
and translated into tiny packets, passed hand to hand like contraband
through a century of sometimes sleepless nights.
To say something is different is to create fate.
If right now proves anything
about back then, it’s destiny,
and I’m on the other side of the world
full of sun and a thousand things I can’t bring you.
As if anyone could describe a single wave.
In curling toward shore, this one reveals itself, kneels,
then scatters in confusion, but even that’s not quite right.
Still it would have been a shame not to notice this
and try to map it for you, and now
it’s another thing to leave behind between us.
An ocean, mostly blue.
Litany
When she asked me where fairies live, I said trees.
The president nods off on his golden loo.
The senator from South Carolina won’t shut up.
Here’s another virgin with a list of baby names picked out.
Here’s another corporate lobbyist rewriting the tax code.
Maybe if I hum a few bars?
Brittany.
Brayden.
Aiden.
Litany.
They ring the market’s opening bell by hand.
They sell the bundled debt fiber-optically.
For the rest of your life, every cashier will ask if you want to round up.
They’re rebranding butter as I Can’t Believe It’s Not I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
They’re rebranding death as Nature’s No. 1 Clinically Proven Anti-Aging Formula.
Arms wide: Shavasana.
In the moment the airbag deploys, the car sends the satellite a signal.
As the ambulance receives the coordinates, its radio crackles.
Bed in Winter
First thought, dark thought.
Now night, an old tune,
so soon a truer sleep returns,
one intent on placating its own cravings.
We dream the moon into being.
Great ships ghost the horizon,
then vanish at lights-out.
Among the trees, spiders
hang tiny ladders spun from silver:
a new shift of creatures is taking over.
There’s a clearing overhead
as we prepare to assume a place in the sky.
No one speaks. There’s too much to be said.
We’re never more than nearly awake.
We’re evolving neither from nor toward
this nothingness—our eternity has simply arrived,
but will any of us remember it later?
As the sun fights back, our children grow
weary of their own thoughts,
and rubbing their eyes, push stuffed dogs
away with their feet.
Ziggurat
Because it was the most beautiful thing,
I built my fortress from snow.
It’s my most complete thought. It won’t last long.
Against the white you can’t miss
the shelves of books, nor the guests’ stunned looks
as I chip their breath off the ceilings.
Turns out I’m my own best servant.
In the kitchen I cut crusts from sandwiches,
a forgotten permission slip in my pocket.
When I shout “dinner’s ready,” the rooms go silent.
There’s no drawbridge, no trebuchet into outer space.
Eventually everyone makes a flying leap.
In one story of Osiris, to become an immortal,
you simply act like one. It was written on the walls
of the pyramids, and some of them still stand.
At night, home is indistinguishable from night,
but when I shine my headlights right at it,
it looks like diamonds.
Now Where Were We?
In this weather it’s tough
to make a clean getaway
in stolen bishop’s slippers,
the bridesmaids smashing wine glasses,
trucks not thinking twice
about driving onto the ice
and making a bonfire
out of used Christmas trees.
Scoreboard: noon sun, moon none.
Hoods up and hats on,
fresh track marks in the talk track,
lost walkie-talkies talking in tongues,
come in come in, got your ears on?
Even though we’re mostly eyes.
Even though we shouldn’t be trusted with teeth.
Somewhere far from here there’s a beach
where cormorants chase the shags
and beauty has tricked itself into believing
it’s immune from extinction
in a way that ends each day
in a sunset that doesn’t make you feel
as if you aren’t keeping up,
someone grandfathered you in.
Try as we may, it’s clear
we’re going to experience everything
not quite twice.
Fall In
This is my love letter to the world,
someone call us a sitter.
We’re going to be here awhile.
We’re going to have traffic
coming up on the eights,
the latest news at the top of the hour,
and this early in the night
when the bats circle the steeple,
they look as pale
as my more unvarnished thoughts,
that one about what
to do with bacon grease,
or how best to approach
Neoplatonism in the dark.
If you’re looking for them,
the cowboys left for the noodle bar,
the ballerinas are down
on the ground level,
circling the baggage carousel.
I’m not going to turn this upside-down
so you can see
the answers in the margin.
Time is working against us,
but it makes us love it more.
Everything I’ve ever touched,
even seaweed.
Whatever I’ve thrown away
and then desperately wanted back:
old boots, cinnamon-baked pears,
bumper cars at midnight, Berlitz,
Becky Razzidlo’s basement
before her parents got home.
The first time I walked
out onto a lake in the middle of January
I knew I could go anywhere.
April Light
The movers have arrived, terrified of books.
Maybe spooked by the bird feeder on its side,
spilled champagne coupe of a sodden god
abandoned at the curb with a mattress,
as if someone outgrew sleep. The last snow
retreats into the earth to wait us out, or does it?
We can’t be sure. Swim lesson registration is full.
Raise the window sash enough to allow in
the present tense: where are the cowards now?
In the park, they pull the tarp off the carousel.
Our dreams don’t change much.
A purple elephant chases a pink seahorse in circles.
Four white stallions pull an empty chariot
to a spot where the youngest know to wait.
Trace
1.
More or less alone
now wishing for time
to sing itself into a strain
of thought stored in trace
amounts growing gradually
into gestures inking the book
that holds the pages
with thin blue lines.
Are you with me so far?
Good, it’s almost over.
To serve you better, our terms
and conditions have changed,
or so poetry’s technology
is always announcing,
its chipped crystals poised
to detonate and melt back into
the unsaid after releasing light
from a sense of the collective.
(a prologue that Saturday
surrenders to) this desert night
making its final appeal,
it’s as if that’s all there is,
a bit winter but not quite spring,
everywhere between us the sound
of no ground being given
on heavy trading
as the markets stumble
under indifferent skies.
There’s nothing I fear more
than my own intentions.
I don’t have much advice for you here.
On your first trip to Europe,
see the great churches.
On your second, mostly drink wine.
When a mother is grieving,
the oldest daughter
should enter the room first.
A scorpion is never
just resting there. Some of you
will be disappointed to learn
I didn’t write this
to “express my feelings,”
though I hope you will be
the same people relieved
to discover it doesn’t require
a skeleton key.
It’s a little space
opening up in language,
full of permission.
2.
I don’t believe in
the paranormal any more
than I do the idea that a poem
can mend the world,
but I also refuse every offer
of surrender presented to me
by my own disbeliefs.
I’ve been reading
of the icebergs dispatched
with urgent news
drowning before reaching us,
and of our prehistoric ancestors
sleeping in trees
with the bowerbirds
that know how to navigate
by stars. Like Saturn,
which I yesterday saw glow
through the McDonald
Observatory telescope, its rings
that I assumed were asteroid belts
turn out to be mostly dust
and great mists of ice,
two of the rings spinning defiantly
in opposition to the collective.
I’ve been following
the latest quantum experiments
that isolated two diamonds
and bombarded one with electrons,
still altering the other,
proving “spooky action
at a distance” is real.
Describing this
to my wife over the phone
I could hear our daughter
clearing the dinner plates
and it made me wonder
what should have been said differently.
Inside my pockets is a small cloth
I use to wipe dust from my glasses
and enough space
to hide my harmless, cold fists.
Outside this house
I can see tumbleweeds
rolling down the street
and since I walked among them
probably also tumbleweed dust
somewhere in my chest.
We’re trapped inside diamonds
but when we think of one another
we can make the diamonds spin.
3.
If we belong to anything in the universe
it’s to our own music,
which isn’t a place or thing,
but a disruption to the norm,
loose patterns of displacement
and recovery
creating regions of high and then
low pressure, a plot
that writes itself, like weather.
I can still hear the dishes
being put away in St. Paul,
stacked like hats into old cabinets.
The sun is burning off the clouds
pressing in from Chihuahua.
Last night, when I tried
and failed to see
the Marfa Lights, I succeeded
in preserving their mystery.