YOU NEVER KNOW

Suppose for a moment: 

ambition's not the issue. 

Short of money, looks, 

and the privilege 

of ambivalence, 

what on Earth else 

could be wrong with you?  

*

Growing older 

is like binging 

a riveting 

series on Netflix, 

desperate to know 

what comes next—but 

in reverse: 

all of the whispers, 

the taste of their lips—

even the texture 

of that fabric 

on your fingers—

disappears; it

starts rushing backwards 

in a torrent 

as you sit there 

transfixed before 

all you never learned. 

You realize (for instance), 

watching found families 

back away from one another 

and old lovers shrink. 

and smooth-out. and weaken, 

that all along, 

you'd been too glib 

or hasty 

when you said you knew love;

what you really felt 

(or thought you did) 

was loveliness 

mixed with safety. 

*

Skin blushes, 

sugar rushes, 

pleasure felt in rhyming—

how much of this 

would still be important 

with the Great 

Lakes dried-up 

and the west coast 

in the ocean? 

You cannot be sure,
so you'd better list 

everything. 

CONDOLENCES

"Not half bad!" cheep 

the migrating 

barn swallows 

as they bed down 

for the evening in the cart 

outside the store. 

But when I ask them 

to elaborate, they only keep 

repeating themselves,

so I continue 

through the lot alone 

on my pedestrian chore. 

Though admittedly

a little more 

slowly than before—

thinking, after all, 

I've got things 

to get done, 

and others 

to get over—

but also, now

a few 

on which to land 

until tomorrow. 

HARD MODE

What I want 

is to have been given 

all the answers 

in advance. 

What I get instead 

are platitudes, 

highlights, 

spot-lit, 

slowly rotating 

carousels of facts—

not collected, 

but selected prose. 

And how tempting it is 

to punch in 

the cheat code; 

to let one thing, 

not  support, but 

stand in for another; 

for dessert to take 

the place of dinner. 

But no, there's not 

an app for that. 

The map is not 

the territory—

no matter 

how intricate 

or lovingly rendered. 

Facts are not objects; 

truth is not beauty; 

and beauty 

is something more 

than order.  

HOT TOPIC

The saving grace 

of intrusive thoughts 

is how they 

never seem to make themselves 

at home,

how each 

is preempted, and prevents 

the last one

from getting stuck 

in the flow. 

*

Obscure loops 

of bird slang 

buffeting me 

from the roof in 

the morning

like shrill orbits 

around a supermassive 

object, long-collapsed; 

like empty electron shells 

around a hydrogen atom. 

all going nowhere 

in the most urgent fashion; 

like a time-lapse 

of doomed bees in what's left 

of autumn flowers—

showing me there's always 

something to remember, 

even if I only know that

because I have forgotten. 

*

The hottest gift 

this Christmas season 

is suspension 

of your disbelief 

that, unlike loneliness 

or empty space, 

need is a hole 

you can fill 

with itself. 

COAT OF ARMS

November rose 

near the fence, you're 

an argument—

tattered, not fragrant;

more thorns 

than petals—yet 

fierce enough 

to be here, 

to press a point 

that no longer matters—

to voice your concern 

for childless mothers 

and endangered 

pink elephants; 

for punk rock dads 

whose roots are showing

and half-novels mired 

in dark locked drawers—

in short, 

for the lost race; 

for the cursed family tree; 

for the not-unhappily dark

and stormy future 

of irrelevance. 

CONFLICT AVOIDANCE

The incongruously sweet 

talk of pigeons 

in the park 

as they run 

interference all 

over one another, 

scrimmaging 

for corn crumbs, plum 

pits, bread crusts—

though strange-

ly attractive, is 

not such a good trick—

this glut 

of rapprochement, 

this spurious gossip,  

this little bit 

of trouble which

adds such spice to dinner

must be indicative 

of something 

I do too, but—

I don't even want to know what. 

COMING TO TERMS

Once-noble savages 

with their hands 

on the monolith 

are now become, not death,

but hapless 

fish 

who got snagged 

in six-pack holders—

who found their fins tangled 

in a flimflam of options, 

or got strangled 

by the disembodied 

washing-hands of explication.

Great inviolate nets 

of cause and effect 

trawled through oceans 

of perspective, seaching 

for the bottom—

but such a glut 

of explanations

was less of a cure 

than a clue 

to what was missing 

and filled precious 

little of that trench 

in the truth; 

now, none are left

to acknowledge 

that depth 

is just height as seen 

from another point of view.