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Carnival Sin

Days of breaking pottery, sitting
zazen in the yard, watching
children come to caskets, made to
weep over their fathers. Of
scraping skin to find out if the
soul surrounds the heart, like a
bag full of water
wrapped around a fish.

(First appeared in Euphony)

Gull

Bloody-colored inner lips and throat
screeching at the ground, then at the sky.

In its eye, a trace of ice and burning marble;
gentry gone to seed under a curse-

tatterdemalion,
who knows to beg the ground first.

Hell For Straight

If he wanted to know what day it was,
he'd say "Chris, tell me what...

...then his face would constrict,
his eyes would cross,
the skin on his neck would redden,
and spit would start to bubble
in the corners of his mouth
as he sputtered and stuttered
out words like week...year...month...
before arriving violently on DAY!
Then he would gasp with relief,
as if he'd finally found a breath
amidst a frenzy of sneezes.

"It's okay, I'm just in the...bedroom...den...kitchen...BATHROOM!"

"He thinks in sets now," my father said,
and it was true.
When he got stuck before a word,
you could see he knew it,
it was in there,
but he had to run the set before he found it.

My Grandpa.

He was the most straightforward man I ever knew.
Flat as the Kickapoo soil that he'd grown up on,
he'd say, "not so very bad" to any question: how'd he been,
how went the music, how was Grandma,
how's the grilled cheese down at Jim's...

After his first stroke,
he switched from Bluegrass to Dixieland,
and from banjo to mandolin.
"I just can't make the same strings...keys...notes...CHORDS!"

My Grandpa once told me a story about his father,
how his father would sight down the line of fence posts
he had his seven sons pounding through the Kansas earth.
"I'm hell for straight," he'd say,
and keep them at it until the posts
were exactly where he wanted them.

The last time I ever spoke to my Grandpa was over the phone.
I was in the west of Ireland,
he had just returned home from a hospital in Southern California.
"I almost died," he said.
"I know," I said.
And that was all we said.
There was nothing else to add
because everything was straight,
and very bad.

(First appeared in Slipstream)

The Last Firefly

Green-backed fireflies
spark like firebombs
seen through night-vision goggles.
Vines hang like monkey tails.
A canine howl sounds,
and the night constricts with want.
An acre of ticks and poison sumac
taps its rapture to my chest.

And the last firefly
with something light to say
will say a one-eyed dog
in just my imagination,
but be careful
should I start seeing angels.

(Forthcoming in Talking River)

A Winter's Worth Of Hay

"Wishes are horses that kick you in the heart
and then ask you if you'd like another ride."
-Robert Mezey

No horse to kick me in the heart.
Just a fat, bitter white pony
To rattle the tin can of its hoof
Against these sullen grey fence-posts,
Opposite of which
I stand and offer carrots-
Asking nothing in return
But recognition
For the broad and ugly tooth-marks
In my knuckles.

(Forthcoming in SN Review)

Death Masks Are True Portraits

A dead skunk laid out
along the stripe
in the center of the road,
its poor, rigid tail leaving off
where the flat line begins,
its death mask
asking me to laugh
at the irony and pain
of its passing.

The passing wheels
will pound its body
back into the pavement
until there's nothing left
but a faint over-ripeness in the air;
the viscosity of roadkill.

(Forthcoming in SN Review)

Some Strangeness In Proportion

"There is no excellent beauty
that hath not some strangeness
in the proportion."
-Francis Bacon

The tide begins to leave,
and the first sea stones,
with their black and glossy crowns
polished to the point of seeming oily,
start to nuzzle
towards the air
above the water.

Just as Rodin
could have dreamt it
had his hands
allowed his head
to dream of seals
beneath the sea
coming up to see
what's going on
on shore.

(Forthcoming in SN Review)