To Get to the Other Side

To Get to the Other Side

The pigeon scurries on matchstick legs,
head pushed forward to help it to run faster,
to get out of the street and away from the car.
It has forgotten about the wings on its shoulders.

Six deer lined up on the riverbank,
a garland, a paper chain, headed up the grass
for the road under the snow sifting down.

The spider showers with me.
She has learned that the steam makes the ceiling,
her floor, slick. She lowers herself a millimeter,
her body the harness.

The parking lot is full of evergreens.
A seagull guards the entrance.
What a weird forest
we are inspired to throw together.

What We Know Too Well

What We Know Too Well

It falls from us,
a towel heavy from having
taken the water from our skin.

The familiar melody
that wormed its way through
the brain, to wedge itself

in a slim crevasse--
we sing it without knowing
we are singing, our voice slides

so easily around
its grooved and bony frame.
What we do most often exists

only in average,
its commonest take. The black
grounds flecking my index finger

after pouring
the coffee into the filter, the button’s
give and green glow, the scream

of the hot water
through the pipes, the showerhead:
None of this is happening now.

Today’s shower
is yesterday’s, the car is planted in
every parking space you have ever

chosen before
at the grocery store. Even with
your new winter jacket, in every

memory you have
in which you are cold, you are
wrapped in the same blue wool coat.


We need the
protection that this offers us,
the soothing possibility that

all things can
stay as they are when we last
encountered them. The towel

will be there
when we reach, the man’s face
and throat will still be smudged

with stubble,
the woman will answer when we
dial the number no longer hers,

not for years.
We bury our face in what we know
too well, it is so soft and dark.

Dance Stupider

Dance Stupider

Dance stupider. Make less sense.
Order a dish that you hate,
just to confirm that the bitterness
of radishes is still unpleasant.

Be late, but do not rush, do not
look at any announcement of time,
do not will anyone to be impressed
by your goodness or responsibility.

Forget the stamp on a birthday card,
and open it, weeks later, when it returns.
No one expects a four-tiered cake from you.
Stop furtively scouring the grout.

Let an unthinking part of you
steer for a stretch. When you recover,
nobody loathes you. Gloriously small
are our grievances against the self.

The Bulls

The Bulls

He’s got this life that’s real exciting,
always on a bike outside. Mountain biking,
dirt biking, two wheels and he’s on it.
Four wheels, even, over the dirt,
dogs all running around his feet,
going in the woods.

One time he calls me, asks what I’m doing.
Watching the Bulls, the Bulls verse somebody, I say.
He says Come over tomorrow.
Next day I go over to his place and we go in the living room.
There’s six little dogs all crawling on each other,
falling on their faces which are beautiful,
eyes pushed wide apart.
Pit bulls’ eyes look like humans, you ever seen them.
Living alone, him and these pit bulls,
pit bulls are what he raises.
He goes, Which one do you want?

Not often you meet someone like that, knowing the land
is large enough and large enough,
giving you your own dog to take home.

In Deep Thought

In Deep Thought

Down, we are pulled down into it,
our toes reaching for the bottom
of the swimming pool which has dropped away
beneath us.

Every present person dims.
Deep thought shoots out of us, ink veiling
all that is around.

Down into its cavern, where big, monosyllabic words
drip down like stalactites.

We are alone, down there,
lolling in a tarry pit.

Returning from deep thought takes work.
And when we emerge, we are startled
at how intensely bright it is up there, up here.