The thing with mirrors is
that they always want
to tell the truth
where we what is lies,
or at least a little fibs,
some wrinkles smoothed,
hair now a color the mirror
is more than capable of reflecting, but
mirrors don’t bend
to our wishes, and when
they do, at carnivals mostly,
the result varies between
horror and hilarity.
He said, “I survived the war,
was up to my armpits in water
wading through the night
through the rice plants
that would never bear grain
once we called in the orange.
I walk through minefields,
the noise a deafening silence
since the only sound that mattered
was the click that shouted death
You think Ii have issues now
and in your mind I certainly do
but you my issues didn’t go away
like Jamie’s, he heard that click and a moment
later his issues were gone, and the moon
was painted blood red that night
and it inhabits my dreams still.
Two men, having reached
an indeterminate age, sit on old chairs
outside the small town grocery, it’s
neon beer sign half, flickering, around
the corner from the bank on main street.
One, plaid shirt tucked in coveralls,
one bib strap unbuckled, leans back,
takes a turn on his long neck, his cane
propped against his leg, thankful for the rest.
The other, denim shirt bleached in spots,
threadbare in others, pours the remains
of a bag of potato chips into the plastic bowl
resting atop the empty 50 gallon drum that is
at this moment a table, later a platform
for the checkerboard both are not
drunk or bored enough to bring out.
He opens a beer on the edge of the drum
and both look up smiling at the clearing sky
and a Saturday afternoon in the
only America they have ever known.
My mother no longer speaks to me. It is not that she has been dead two years, that passage would hardly be an impediment for her. I would like to think she has nothing left to say, having said it all so many times in the past. Some say we will see each other again in heaven, but it is unclear which, if either of us, will be there, and I don’t look forward to once again being a child who can do nothing quite right enough for her, yet again, and for eternity, this time.
He wants to have his
midlife crisis in peace and quiet.
He has penciled it in his calendar
for at least five years now.
Something always comes up,
something that demands he
be in public, and he simply
will not have a crisis
in that setting, no matter what.
He’s sure he supposed to have one
although as time goes by
he isn’t sure what purpose
it would serve, it isn’t
that his life isn’t half over,
merely that he has what he wants
and the crisis is best used
as an excuse to get something
utterly unnecessary and useless,
and that, for him,
is so five years ago.
If a thousand objects
are arrayed before you
what will you do,
what do you call them?
A sphere has no edges,
I can reach through a cloud.
Why would I try
to cut a moment in two,
or stuff a cloud in my pocket.
To arise from the earth
is simple, too fall back
the more difficult, for
that is a journey we all
seem to fear, though
with no arising, there
can be no falling back.
When I finally admitted
that I feared dying and
didn’t want to be drafted
to fight in that war
Roshi asked me if I
feared being born.
“Fear,” he said, “takes
up all of your energy
and there is never
time enough for that.”
