I should be home by now

What did I know? I was just a kid lost

in play.  Lost in make believe 

in the high ceilinged rooms

of Christine's house down the street.  

Christine with hair light and pure, 

a free-from-dust glow around

her golden threads and periwinkle eyes.  

Fair and sweet as infant Jesus 

watching from the candle-bright altar.  

Then I remember and throw down 

the dolls and shriek, 

I should be home by now! 

Run girl run, my mother's voice 

shrill in my head loops and loops 

and I see her face disfiguring

before me, her oldest child, 

the one most likely to turn out like her, 

the impulsive girl with unkempt hair,

the one she must subdue with brute force, 

must break her in by lunging and slamming 

and throwing her down

until the girl stops screaming and kicking, 

until she lies still, playing dead, and then 

my mother strips from her nails 

the daughter's dislodged hairs, 

one at a time, the silky brunette strands 

of hair without a halo. 

Into the arena

 To the heart ....was it ever less than treason ... 

to bow and accept 

the end of love or a season? --Robert Frost

On our routine walk across the grass

to his first grade room, my boy lets 

my hand go.

You need not hold my hand anymore, 

he says, abashed.  

My gulp, the noise my heart makes,

all squeeze into a smile.  

And before long,  the boy instructs, 

Don't walk me from the car.  

I can go myself.  

His voice still small but dense with volition, 

a fresh-born will, still damp from its placenta, 

but unshakable

So I swallow and watch with pride--

and it is genuine--

this boy run across the grass,

fast on pup's legs, 

without expertise of any kind, 

and alone, still a stranger 

to the world.

Then one day comes the text:

Do not pick me up from school.  

I will walk home.

Now it all looks clear. 

He is suited up, almost free 

from my love--his oppressor.

Iron-cold fireplace

I just read about a convict 

     and think of you, 

    father of my friend--

another boy raised 

in an iron-cold fireplace

who keeps winding up 

in iron-cold places 

     as if jail means a home 

     you can always count on. 

I don't know what to call a boy 

with small fists knocking on doors 

for food then carried off to strangers 

till parents get him back 

for awhile.  

I think of how you bludgeon the world 

     with your sweet looks and mind with wings  

     but it jackhammered your life 

     anyway.  

What amazing good/bad luck 

to have it all 

and nothing 

at the same time.  

I don't know what to call a grown man 

with 14 families in his head and

no God around to help--you sure learned that, 

father of my friend.

    

     Prayers not answered in a world

     that cannot make things right. 

You hold up your hand 

and make a circle between your thumb 

     and forefinger to show me 

     in that tiny patch of sky 

    a hundred thousand galaxies.

What God, you ask, can care about all that? 

Life goes on

I come to pour him 

into this empty beach.

I move toward a quiet realm

where currents scare my species

     away, there 

     I pour my precious dust.

The crabs have noticed. 

Already working 

toward this meal but that's ok.

Let them feast on him before wind 

     and water take his rest away

     and so his life goes on. 

I choose for him the shadow 

of a giant rock black as iron

     thrashing waves about it

     like a castle in a moat. 

This rock so easy to find again 

     and again.  I tell our kids,

walk past the long lagoon, 

pass the cove, the overlooks, 

keep walking,

stay close to shore, watch for a rock, 

     alone and dark and for a crowd

     of shorebirds poking everywhere.

Look for Herons flying high,

     join that merry wake.  

Walking away

The quest now is to walk away 

from fear and from the fear of fear, 

walk off into the woods and cool humidity, 

walk close to the edge of the river's rush and roar 

where the trees stop, where the borders of 

branches disappear and you hear them--

a conspiracy of ravens screeching 

but see just a flash of one black wing.

Keep in that direction, 

follow that primeval shriek 

and by the river stop, 

remove your shoes,

stand barefoot in cool water, 

your jeans damp with spray, feel now

too at ease to fear

all that's hell or even heaven.

Savagely I now recall

My girls swing for hours, moving, 

moving heads up, feet up, 

moving heads up, 

feet up.

Sometimes they want me 

to push them, they want 

to move faster, faster 

but I refuse, my body worn 

from life.

I do not see the clock's hands 

buffer round and round 

past our crowning 

moments.

I do not see the clock's hands 

creep below the ground to

loosen one by one 

all the bolts that hold us 

there.

Mindless, I decline to push them. 

Mindless, I read the book 

I could be reading now instead

of then.

I will follow you there....

I will follow you there where the waves break, 

where the birds play with you, there

where the wild wind scatters you 

in the scrolling surf,

on my knees, sinking into sand 

swallowed inch by inch by 

these excited waves, so excessive 

their excitement that I fear

I might join you right then and there

the way they heave and pull on me, 

blowing and towing. 

But life is so beguiling I hold on, 

dear one, I hold on 

to my own self 

and turn my back on those swells,

on you.

Forgive me, my love; I will hand over

to death only one precious hour 

at a time.

.  

How is it we are strangers?

First you crawl to me 

then your first steps 

circle my legs 

and boom! 

you are taller than me 

and you run for the plane

and vanish from 

some windy platform 

as if swooped up 

by a hawk. 

How is it that you and I are strangers 

when yesterday we lived in this world 

laced like a vine on a trellis? 

Here in this same town, same house

making the same bean and cheese burrito? 

The shrink's diagnosis: manhood.  

He says you will cross many rivers 

many times, many bridges on your journey. 

He says that's life: one day manhood 

seems so far ahead and boom! 

one day a man stands before you.

Sobered, I walk the trail home 

and meet a sweet horse that gallops 

along the gate, he eager 

to keep pace and I think 

of my boy. 

Each night comes a dream of you 

on your bike, 

you racing beside me,

the joy on your face. 

My joy.