Before the Fall

September 10th of your seventy-first year
Finds me sitting by the picture window
Staring at the maple tree you planted
In the front yard and which served

As second base for kickball games
You never saw us play because
You always worked the  night shift 
And then slept all day,

Like you do now on the rented hospital bed
While family gathers round to lend
An air of festivity to this,
Your third to final Saturday.

You don't know what to say, and I
Don't either, so I make you chocolate milk
And cut the straw so you can
Reach it easier- just like you used to do for me.

And when you use it to blow bubbles
Pointlessly, we can't stop giggling, 
And this is the moment I accept
Your death and mine,

And the maple tree drops its first leaves
Of the season in a gust of wind
That rattles through the window pane,
Your glass half full of chocolate milk. 

You Live One Ambiguity Away

From my neighborhood but I 
See you as a contradiction, fictional even,
Basically existing on another plane than this one- that I’m on.

I stand behind you at the funeral,

Black fabrics draping us like makeshift uniforms,

Your head hung low like mine,

Separate lines of interconnection

Linking one to the next, but sharing all in grief,

A common territory that the living inhabit, graveside. 

So shall we all be lowered down to common ground

With the slow creaking of the ropes that fix us now. 

Form & Substance

Spring buds on branches
Dance in the wind. Their shadows
Darken frosted grass. 

The sun wakes early.
A single drop of water 
Stands on a branch tip.

This is one haiku 
But it is three haikus too.
The drop has vanished.

Stacked

Exploring the law reminds me of
Tiptoeing through abandoned buildings as a child 
And finding dusty calendars tacked on a wall
With loopy cursive anticipations—

Rotary dial telephones and wooden recipe boxes 
Left for what? Tuesday dinner September 23, 3034?

What is any written record for—

If not for us quietly to explore like children looking for something more 

Than whatever today’s plans hold? 

Do not forget to close the kitchen door 

On your way out. This life is one plate

In a stack on a waiter’s hand that holds a dozen more. 

Scars

When the sun comes up, it'll tear the sky

Like a razor tears a wrist,

But I'll be safe in bed with you

Where every cut is like a kiss.

The broken dish that holds your ring

Neglected on the bedside stand

Curls its jagged edges

Like a fist around an empty hand.

Night by night, when quiet comes

I trace the constellations

Of your scars across the empty space

Of flesh in which they're hung. 

Lone Sparrow

Even the sun call fall in line
Behind her paler sister, 
Crown her princess for the afternoon-- 
The penumbra a diadem for the moon

While on the ground the headstones snatch
Their shadows back into the grave--
The last trill of a lone sparrow echoes
Off the bare spring earth, now strangely closed,

As are all of those who witness
Now the larger darkness spilling
From the sun's humility--

The moon remains the princess
Of the darkness, willingly. 

Flight

Just as our flight takes off,

I wonder with a jolt of panic

If I have left enough food for the cat

I no longer have, the one who

Years ago fell asleep in the dryer

On top of a pile of clothes

Right before I closed the door

To warm them one more time.

It is always moments like this

When my subconscious chooses to remind me

In a visceral way that it is too late,

And I have made a fatal mistake.