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

Altar

The table is set

Was set and now half

Gone, eaten, labored

Beyond recognition or disheveled

Whichever way you might lean

there's less now than before

And more, though, somewhere

Else dropping down and round

Churning silent soon

To the ground

Our feet there, still, keeping

Time, an un-anxious rhythm,

On the earthen hours

Resounding the life of our

digested, decomposed meal -

The heavens in refuse,

Almighty in the dirt and the table

Is set

Again