GROWN-UP PROBLEMS

Back—in that place
before the aftertaste
plotted its daring dislocation
from the taste,

before the sun hung
hemoglobin-red
at the end of an anniversary
date's unsympathetic tether;

back in the old apartment,
the one with the stucco
walls, the one above the Starbucks;

back before the utterance's disintegration
into its inexorable silent answer
and Paul Simon's (incongruous)
hit song about the sound of that;

there in the secret lookout place
where you'd hide, bare-kneed, still,
and breathless, behind the orange drapes,

to watch them as they first envisioned
the impressive dam they'd build
against the fat muddy middle
finger-shaped river of their grief—

that's the only
place where you could travel
to catch—and tenderly

caress—that gently curving little c,
that very first malignant letter
of their current condition.

PRETTY SUNSET POEM

Red—is not even

a thing.
And yet,

there it is—in the world;
defensible murder,
at five

in the evening—
the heroically
crumple-

edged face—of that
slowly
asphyxiating man.

UNDER COMPULSION

Looking out at immortal
dawn, it's dis-
quietingly easy—to imagine

the countless lives
which must be
buckling

under the weight of its bracing
horizon line—
above which,

cast in autumn
air's fierce clarity,
cut countless

genuine arrows;
but those
migratory animals

must never
leave home either, if
they don't care

a bit
what state they're
in—or which.

FACING WHAT'S THERE

Most perfect thing I do
all day—fling
open every gray
curtain in the morning, smoothly
avoiding any
picking and choosing.

LAUDS

Cold light on wood, on texture
of blank paper, rough as the mountain
tops of an old gray monk's finger tips.

Black coffee, slow two-stepping itself
too cool to drink
in its antiseptic white ceramic.

Seconds ticking—the distance inside each
one of those foggy mountains, crags in
complete shadow, can't see the summit.

Just two or three
sentences, no more—and nothing was ever
the same after that.

Could just eat.
But then—will only have broken
a fast

and still not received what
is needed—or badly
wants to be.

FULL STOP

I think I can picture
those bees down there, drowsy
with cold, hovering in those costly
sunny patches still remaining;

and across the street, there's
the chilly flutter
of the yellowing trees
and the drably colored

menial birds, arrowing back
and forth underneath,
suspicious of stasis,
manic for breadcrumbs.

High in a windowed tower,
in which no one living
still believes in Jesus,
a short sort of prayer

just barely finishes
coming together—far less
believable, and more oblique
in its way of asking

than either of us really
deserves or cares for. There's a sense
of relief just after
distant church bells

finish tolling noon—this time
of year, at least
for me, it's only just
now a new morning.

ASTIGMATA

I've only just now
come fully alive—having

found myself stumbling alone
in this hazardous land.

And I feel—not amazed, but
amazed I understand.

Dark angels, hawklike
haunting street corners

seem to want to meet
and shake hands.

Don't you see? I tell them,
it’s not—having a problem;

it's having a problem—no
one else has.