Orion

You’re sure if you squinted at the stars enough

heaven might notice the trowels, spoons,

tiny coins left in the dirt where you once

buried the ashes of the family dog. Daffodils

and grape hyacinths sent up their

green apostrophes the following spring,

and you once found a ring in a gardening glove,

sure it was sent by your dead father.

Now you do everything with your father’s

shield and sword in your hands, as if he bequeathed

them to you and you hadn’t really just stolen them

from a hope chest to remember the quest

of his imagination. You are still so far from guessing

the true meaning, but can point at the constellations

and rename them all: Falstaff’s Wrinkle, Circular Bear,

Skeezix and Threnody. You have something

to get you home safe and sound. You have

a belt full of tools at your hip as you stand  

in the center of your triangle of fire.

Disaster

I know a lousy handshake

when I receive one, half-meant.

The unfocussed gaze. Not listening.

Or the hug that is so light I can feel

the chalk outline behind it.

It’s difficult to keep from falling

into the big black hole that hides

under all those metal plates

you see on the streets. To be swallowed

whole, to disappear, to drown

or be blown away by a gale-force

windbag you met at a university.

Unfair. Creating meaning requires

a good amount of just staring into the air. Time.

I like to build an act or a house of words

to walk through, a series of rooms

outfitted with damask and china,

then let neglect kill off all the plants.

Creak out empty nails from the walls where family

photos once hung. The windows were blown out

with buckshot that burst constellations of glass

on the floor, left shards and shadow.

An umbra that howls at night

so much it makes your knees jerk.

I think you have to add a lot first

in order to subtract.  Unless

you want to be a totally charming

but bad star in the field of creation.

Ask me when I am 90 what I loved most.

First I will tell you it was being held,

second, the slip of buttons through fingers,

then I will get lost in a spin of all there is to love,

a rambly multiverse that makes you wish for silence.

Ask and you'll receive a hug so hard you’ll feel

my whole life ahead.

Why It Isn't Spring Yet

Because we will it so. Because the song of traffic thrums

against the wrestle of city gristle and grime, disguised

and then revealed by March's greyed lens. Because we will it so.

There is a mansion of snow for the carnival players

who burn their scripts to improvise longing. Because we will it so.

Because a rose stampedes its red into the eye. Because paper,

when offered up for an autograph, deserves one, but not right away.

There is a pause. A breath. The absence glitters.

Because we will it so.