Nameless

I received a letter once, from a girl

Adressed: to you from me,

How cute,

as if

Something affectionately meaningful passes

Between namelessness and, looking back,

I knew better

I wonder if she couldn’t bring herself to put my name

Down, in black and white, on paper - to create something

Forever: a monument to the relationship of those titles

By which we are known,

Respectively, one to another; perhaps I should have called

It a spade, the cute me and you, a foreboding

Of what did inevitably come

Because

Don’t be sentimental.

Now is not the time.  It was impossible that such backward

Self-denial not dissolve, not give way to the dissolution

Of what it seemed we had;
Run, me from you.

I figure now she knew then and wasn’t able to bring herself

To write no letter at all,

She figured, a letter to no one from no one

Must be better than nothing, Mustn’t it?!

The old loved and lost, than to have never...

It’s for the best, yes

Now, I can stand it. I’ve recovered; I’ve come through it,

But, of course, then

When I realized what had passed without words,

Without the approval of a name,

Mine; when I learned the meaning of what was not

Written in that letter, what she did eventually, necessarily, mean by you,

Yes, I wasn’t so cool, then; I, too, was short on words,

I had no names to call, and I could feel my air tighten, my chest

With an invisible belt cinch,

Wondering at the meaning of letting go of nothing if

It was to be true, and it was, that what I thought

I had

I never

Had

At all

Your Great Grandfather

I took you to see your great-grandfather

Dressed now in diapers like you

Being fed by a spoon,

Soft food from the hand of a loving woman;

It reminds me (it’s too close) of your state,

Your precious being, your new body

And soul, here and now, rock a bye

Beside his old, four-score, worn

Out body, his tired soul, his broken heart,

I see you both together; you can’t help

But smile and laugh,

That’s all you know in this life:

Both of you,

Joy, freedom - he better than you, in truth

Now that he’s been through it all and approaches

The door, the end, the dark that leads

Only where - we don’t know:

The mysterious Other

Side, the end of the table,

The true head

Seat, the position we’re all fighting for

And, at the same time, desperately hoping to miss,

Avoiding, casting glances every which and other way,

He’s faced with it now, your great-

Grandfather, he’s faced with it now,

His greatness to be tested, his life to be settled

His face now, up and shining, looking through

You, neither one of you perceiving the other -

Only eyes, all eyes, deep,

You and I have been pierced,

And he doesn’t even know; his cares are with us no longer,

They shouldn’t be,

He, naked before God, all still, all radiant, all things uncovered,

This is a moment for us to shine too, reflecting his

Great reflection, the light, he earned, pulled down

From up there, given, the gift you have,

But only, right now, in relationship with him,

Only now, inasmuch as he is yours, only great

Both grand and great, in his light, basking

In the wake of a man who has lived

three attempts

The young man works his hands
      around the frame;
He doesn't yet know what shape his work
Will take or where it will take him

---------

The young man works his hands
Into a knot, his right clinched decisively
In an inter-locking near penetration
With his lift to knead and re-knead
Raw materials, the tools of his labor,
Earthen clay, a sweat-drenched shop towel,
     today's responsibilities and
He wrings and wrings and trusts his strength
To hold him together; it's all a young man
Of his disposition knows: Trust not lest you
Be trusted and more responsibility befall you,
This anthem resounds; it's the inner voice he
Never consciously turns on
Or off.  He is unaware of it and
his hands learn to clinch tighter still, as
Though to hold the sweat from his palms
Forever enclosed in the lightless crevasse betwixt
His press to eventually turn on itself
To must and rancor, but that must needs be
The least of his concerns

---------

The young man knots his hands,
Left into right, wringing them
White and bloodless;
Worry eats him and is full.

He knows his diminishing self; he is
Well acquainted  - at a loss to contend,
But he does, at least in some sense,
Remain willing to classify his efforts
As such - as contest - and he sees clearly
Himself the jester of the crowded coliseum
Awaiting eminent annihilation
Through the teeth of a starved lion.

Yes, his worry is an anxious and
Hungry lion - before whose presence
He trembles with a fright that is, itself,
Formidable and an enigma beyond his
Ever tightened gripping,
Changing, forever the complexion
Of his poor and bare-laden hands

Nap

Just now you went to sleep

In the dark room your mom

Made yours yesterday, with the noise-box

Feigning rain, but you don’t know

The difference; you were supine, reclined,

I was holding you still but with intentional motion

Cross-wise through my chest, your head

Facing east, I rubbed your right temple, felt

Your silky hairs on the tips of my work worn

Fingers.  I was afraid they might wake you.

I didn’t know whether the peaceful calm

On your face, the ease at the edges

Of your lips would last if, when I stood to lay

You down, the slight breeze reckoned

By our mutual lifting would cause you stir,

But it did not, rather, you, stately still, let me

Land you gently to the sheet - I, a farmer

Planting ancient heirlooms, a chef

Topping the main course: with the gentlest ease,

The most attentive care, and without breaking

The rhythm of my own inward song

Rain Work

The morning is wet

this morning, like ten thousand marbles

fell to the ground, dispersed

and turned into water

in all the low places.

My feet, already, like prunes,

soaked to the bottom

of the too-thin soles on my worn out,

old boots, it’s still dark;

the dense, choking clouds

tell the story,

wind and wet -

a tiny black cat walking across the street,

at fifty yards from here

looks like a lizard creeping, a footed snake slithers

until it disappears into the belly, the gerth

of a near-parked four by four, underneath

it growls, hisses, this cold wetness,

pouring hunger deep, insatiably

I wonder if there will be tomorrow

and, yes, if even today has a chance,

for the sun still

shows no sign of waking

In Your Trash

Don’t you see, brother,

Holding bags with me, here

On the yard, in your hands and mine,

The leftovers from last night’s

Reverie, a ball game or birthday,

Or a simple family’s meal, beneath a TV,

In the den, around the bar, you and I

Left with what’s left of yesterday,

The unwanted stuff, piled high in the bed

Of our trucks, we drive house to house,

Collections agents, and they’re all-too-happy-

To-give-us-what-they’ve-got, free

And without regret, we’re making a killing

If only this trash were tender, I’d trade you

My cue-tip collection, mint condition for

(what’s that in your hand?) a garden hose wrapped

Tight and bagged, with that

I can siphon and swing, jump rope and circumscribe,

Yes, please tell me you see the brokers we are,

The fun and play our clients are missing,

Tossing their trash into the hands of strangers

Who might well make anything happen

To pass the time

Trousers

I’m listening to you cry

In the other room, separated

By a thin door not all the way shut - pushed

To the limit in its shrunken

Frame, I sit still, in the quiet,

Picking loose skin from my fingers;

Your mother breaks into the silence with scissors,

Making a dress for your God sister,

And she says there’s a little extra

Fabric for you some trousers,

For you to wear, left, right, to put on one leg at a time,

Just like the rest of us men, nothing special at all,

Nothing to fuss about

i saw him

I saw him.

I caught a glimpse, in a single moment,

Like you’d catch a falling

Leaf, without a blink of thoughtful turn;

Still, with poise, I loosen not my grip;

I cannot shake it, being certain of what

I’ve seen, having looked in the mirror

And studied times without number -

I saw my likeness in his, my face

Replicated and transposed to another

Smaller than I and more comely,

Though, I was once as small and, perhaps,

As fair.  

He turned to face me,

(The leaf fell, and I was compelled to behold:

an invitation, from the tree,

Shedding - as father - his own seed, his very

Life, with one great wind, blown

To thousandths, offering to the ground a covering

Carpet of his essence) and I, having given

My body, receive it back,

Wearing himself my very eyes

That Makes Two

That makes two now that have died

From my class, in this war, (warriors, they were)

I told her, on the other end

Of the phone; my sister called while I was driving, working, thinking

About the heat of the day and when will it end?

My aching wrists and tired feet -

I was caught up - wishing my life away

Until what she said tapped the glass, shattered my self pity;

It stopped me still when I heard

His name over the noise

Of traffic and thoughts and my windows down.

It had been too long since last I heard that name, and it was wrong

To be hearing it now, could mean only the worst:

She went on - Afghanistan, yesterday...

--

And then I saw his face: first, it was his smile, how I remember it,

All joy and pale and freckles,

And then it was another way of seeing him:

His soldiering salute and serious eyes, lit with bright fluorescents,

In print on high gloss; I paused

To study that look of sternness,

Of serenity, and I could say nothing else to my sister on the phone;

I excused myself

To cry, to feel the rock and sway

Of the truck beneath me, my fragile body its captive, to cry

From my eyes and to sweat tears from my arms and neck,

My body-all a duct for this surge that flashed through me;

I felt waves of it, and I tried to remember, in order to cherish,

His smiling face,

The face I saw when first she said his name

And the one, someday, I will love to see,

But now it is that other look,

Of serenity, of the soldier; I look backward to see his salute,

And I said to my sister,

That makes two, two soldiers, two men,

But we were only boys then,

When we were smiling