MYSELF

Let me say: words won't 

explain our relationship. 

In your presence, absence 

itself turns impossible—

turns over and under 

like the infinity symbol—until 

God himself 

could no longer tell 

who is under who's wing,

or if there's any 

difference between 

remembering and knowing.

But I think I've finally 

come to understand 

that remembering bears 

an inestimable cost:

whatever I think you are—

that's what you're not;

whenever i look, 

i can never find you; 

whatever I grasp, I pass 

through like a ghost.

But the act of my looking 

is the way that you tell me 

that it’s you 

who will teach me 

the value of searching—

you

who can never be 

lost.

NAMES

What are these 

dispassionate 

yet fundamental ciphers;

too old to be 

cherished, and yet 

still considered treasures;

imperatively given 

by dead ends  

to unknown futures;

helplessly passed, in fact,

from one breath 

to the next;

holders of the keys 

to these perilous 

identities; 

so charged full of 

significance that they 

themselves mean nothing;

hollow yet impervious 

as gem-encrusted 

coffins, but

comforting to recognize 

as stillness 

in the morning?

EASY COME EASY GO

We like to assume 

such abiding 

designs, but 

the promises we make 

are just so many 

shiny dimes:

begged from 

the stern, old,

and affluent Actual 

by the curious,

bold, but impetuous 

Possible—and then 

flung with delectation 

to the depths 

of a well 

in great hopes 

that the latent return 

on investment 

will redeem the grim

fate of poor 

President Roosevelt.

OLD STANDBY

Despite our patter

of protestations 

that we're 

all obsessed 

with novelty, 

it's pattern 

that we really seek 

and feel the most 

at home in. 

Rhythm still 

gets our motor going,

while rhyme 

feels like a cup of sugar 

our best words kindly 

lend to others. 

Is it right 

that we derive 

so much succor 

from design? 

If there were 

a difference

between right

and common,

would it matter?

SÉANCE

Would it be 

more odd 

or less 

if the dead 

did not 

leave us? 

Anyone's 

guess. But

my sense is:

a ghost 

at my disposal 

who always 

stayed the same; 

who always 

remained 

in the place 

I expected;

who never

changed clothes,

or the expression

on their face 

since the day

I watched them 

pass 

would be 

the last person 

on Earth 

I would ask 

for advice.

TENET

O, to just have faith 

enough to wake 

and stretch 

and dress and 

emerge—

not with great 

exhilaration, but at least 

with nothing specific

to resist. 

How much of our 

art—how many poems 

have wished this? 

How many of their lines,

burning in their 

earnestness, 

have yearned, 

like us, for this great 

and useless beauty—

for nothing like 

purpose, skill, or 

magnificence—

to be organized and cataloged 

by nothing but 

the date today,

and justified merely 

by declaring 

they exist?

LAST WORD

We like to think that 

matters are settled; 

we think we have the facts. 

But what we think of as truth

may only be 

the middle—or even 

the beginning—

and brief as 

dew on morning grass.

Can you picture the universe 

before it was set 

into motion? 

How about the Earth 

devoid of all creatures; 

before it even had its oceans? 

It's far simpler to hope 

in a dream 

to glimpse 

the ancient races 

and their poets: the joys 

and burdens they would carry;

the paths that they would trod. 

Next time you seek

a final answer, think first 

of all the wildly different 

names they must have had 

for god.

IN DEFENSE OF QUIET DESPERATION

Once in a while, I 

grant you: revolution's 

a necessity. 

But most 

of the time, my 

tremendous sensitivity 

would like 

to argue: it's 

too messy. I'm turned off 

by the turmoil 

and the violence 

which is crucial 

to make a clean 

break with The Current

or The Senseless;

I don't want to long 

for the change 

I need to make 

with such passionate 

defiance that I'm 

swept up in some coup;

I'd much prefer to 

fall in love with 

what little I can do.

TO APRIL

The great rabbles

of clouds in your 

quicksilver sky—

confounding,

combining, 

compounding

one another—

are somehow 

less foreboding 

than the ominous way 

they loiter there

all day, holding on

to their rain.

CLIFFHANGER

If this were a movie, 

we'd think 

we've been shortchanged. 

And no wonder: 

the storyline's

meandering; the moral

won't cohere. But 

though we're alone in this 

cavernous theater,

and no one 

would be the wiser, 

the reason 

we haven't yet 

gotten up and left 

is simply because 

we can't—at least, 

not the we 

that we think of 

as us. 

See, somewhere between 

the start of the joint

and this particular 

maddening scene,

we've failed to notice 

the plot's 

beside the point.

As long as we're here 

to watch it progress, 

this life, 

by necessity, must 

be bereft 

not only of a happy 

or ambiguous ending—

but a proper 

ending all together. 

AFFIRMATION

Your duress, though 

intangible, is a matter 

of fact. Yes, it's less 

material than, say, 

an egg which is 

made of Fabergé, 

and yet: there it 

sits, every bit

as intact 

and impeccably 

jeweled in the pearls 

and enamel 

which you forged 

with great care and 

fastidiousness 

in the just-as-

immaterial furnace 

of your stress—yes,

every bit 

as lavish and loving-

ly constructed—

perhaps not quite 

as elegant, but

every bit as frangible.

SEDIMENTAL FEELING

What were the magic 

words that formed 

the world? 

For an instant

most mornings, I suspect 

that I just knew;

but soon, there's a tide 

in the ocean 

of my mind 

dragging out to sea 

all the things I think

are true—and then 

washing mixed-up bits 

and pieces of them 

right back in again—

until most 

of the detritus I can 

see along this beach 

is made up of stuff 

so self-

similar and small

that it's impossible 

for me to count 

each individual particle. 

The best I can do 

is try to put 

the view to use

and give 

one collective name 

to them all.

HOLDINGS

It's impossible

to know 

at the very beginning 

what you'll eventually 

discard 

or outgrow 

and what is worth 

clutching to your soul

just in case. 

It's like how 

you still think 

abnormally hard 

about whether 

to toss 

that pickle jar

which you haven't 

thought to open 

in over three months, 

or keep it there

for three 

or four more 

just because 

you have 

the fridge space.

EKPHRASIS FOR THE PIN-UP GIRL

Even solid gold 

comes off messy 

when it glows 

from its post as 

the trove of her hair—tangled 

in the bearing 

of all that she must know,

too highly regarded 

to be tamed by a comb— 

as she gazes 

out from underneath 

all that wealth without a care,

eyes less daydreaming 

than floating, just above, 

or possibly below 

some effortless truth

about the nature 

of allure 

which you or I, being 

cheap and human, would have 

foolishly discarded.

SHADOWS

For almost as long 

as there has been light, 

something has been there 

to get in the way of it—

casting its absence

as a twin left behind,

a piece of the dark 

in the shape 

of its essence,

recognizable 

in an instant, and yet built 

out of nothing 

and showing us—we 

who are filled

with such questions, 

we who blockade light 

ourselves with these 

bodies—even less 

than those 

selves, even less 

than the night. 

NO ASYLUM

One would think 

that, with the rain clouds 

now parting

and the light drizzling down 

like honey 

from the sun 

on the wet city streets 

which are glistening 

like tongues, you too 

would get

sweetened, would be cleansed 

of what was wrong. 

But in truth, there's no 

asylum in a world that bests

its flaws;

it's a dirtying feeling 

when you sense you 

don't belong. 

ALL THAT JAZZ

Is it possible 

for life to be both 

enjoyed and endured?— 

for the little you have left 

to be the most 

for which you hope? 

The preachers

say no—that our purpose 

shall be known—

while the politicians

split the vote by angling 

for an either/or; 

but the rest of us don't 

bother sending soldiers 

to that war, since 

we already know 

the answer is: sure, that's 

what music is for. 

SYNTHESIS

We're bred 

to think ourselves slaves

to affection—

to assume what we seek 

above all is closeness. 

But in truth, what we 

crave is a strange 

combination 

of intimacy 

and remoteness. 

Perhaps that's why 

in centuries past, 

brave men 

would helm the sterns 

of great boats, 

and, spurning common sense, 

sail off the edge 

into seas unknown 

only to yearn 

for the first sight of land

and dream under bright stars 

of their dull

lives back home.

CONTINGENCY

Like a musty old chess set 

whose knights were 

long lost 

and have since been 

replaced by two 

snatches of cloth, 

or the rusty stock pot 

with a frying pan 

for its cover 

that's too trusty 

to replace, even 

at trivial cost—so too 

can a heart 

still be 

jury-rigged to work 

even with a few 

of its parts 

snatched out, 

mislaid by 

the user, or 

accidentally tossed. 

GAPING

One would think 

that understanding 

would look different 

than bewilderment—at least 

from the outside, 

but the truth is

but it doesn't. 

The truth is, it looks 

exactly like you: 

stopping short, 

gobsmacked 

in front of a shop window 

at the sight of 

not the twin—not even 

the shadow—

but the stranger 

who's depicted there, 

thick, cold, and 

impenetrable. 

It looks like you losing 

and gaining 

sight of the facts

that a gap 

can take up space

and mass—

that some reticence is 

plainly visible—

that certain lacks 

feel solid, vast, 

and, though slight, still

quite unbridgeable.