AQUARIUM

Maybe there's 

a purpose

to each place, 

an end

which pacifies  

all the objections.

Maybe there's 

a bedrock 

somewhere behind your face 

which is free 

of all of the guilt 

of comparison.

Would you rather be 

the fish 

in this aquarium—

forgetting, with each turn, 

the dimensions 

of your prison? 

Would you sigh

with your gills 

spread so wide 

that the patron 

passing by could

see to your inside?

It's possible

what we've built

is all that there is,

but that doesn't mean we 

were designed to 

recognize it.

EVERYDAY POEM

Even the sun—dependable, huge, 

tried-and-

true as it comes,

you know, before 

too long, is 

how it will leave you.

And here, all you've done 

is walk 

into the room;

you must 

not have a thing 

to lose.

REFINING WHAT'S FINE

From the bluntest 

of blows and the 

most pointless impacts—

asteroids smashed 

into still-

molten planets, 

rocks that bust rocks, 

dashboards crushed 

against foreheads—

instead of destroyed 

in a powderkeg 

of morass,

somehow, your

appreciation grows

even more exact.

FERMATA

At last, when there's 

only a minute 

of daylight remaining,

time finally relaxes

and unclenches, 

expanding in significance 

as the sky 

in turn diminishes;

over far shadowed 

hills, mauve clouds 

in the distance, 

a long low note 

being held

in your head—

the last syllable 

of a goodbye

which doesn't know 

how to finish.

A PROBLEM WHERE THERE IS NONE

Inconvenient 

though may be, 

there is no reality 

behind the scene;

reality is simply 

the scene 

seen rightly.

The room 

where you and I once sat

all night arguing—

tacking up 

tents, drawing 

boundaries on the thing—

might itself 

have been 

infinite.

But then, we'd have 

to imagine,

so too 

would have been

the elephant. 

YOUR HOME

Your home is not 

a place you can leave; 

your home is that spot 

where you can't stand 

to be, but nevertheless 

can't stop;

it's the position you're in 

and the attention

you command when 

your ship's coming in, 

and it's the face 

that you make 

while their train's 

pulling out—

that grimace of stone

while you wave 

very slow and refuse 

any teardrops, as if 

even the wind should know 

to blow around you 

on the platform,

because you have 

never allowed 

yourself 

to be moved,

and you do not intend 

to start now.

A GOLDEN CIRCLE

At some definite

moment, the object 

of going 

converts

to the triumph of 

making it back. 

Attainment depends 

not on our finally 

heading to the laundromat

but that proximate

uncanny moment when it 

feels like we never left.

In the end, 

it doesn't matter 

how noble the errand—

endeavor alone

is a sentence 

to death; 

to leave 

and come home is 

a sacrament.