3 Poems

Swimmingly, I fall into it—

the vegetable cooperation

of light and labor.

Useful in a way

that shouldn’t be paid for,

and I know it. I know it.

Yet, I can’t decide if it is a decision,

being drugged through the day

or rubbed against it like sandpaper,

undiagnosed. I know

the root: fear that migrates

into every joint

and organ, striking like

baby cobras let loose

in a circus tent. Too many

people needing to unearth.

I volunteer to warm up

to the idea of snapping this body

like a twig—tossing it off

to the fields for the leaf rot

and clover to feed or eat what I am.

Raining a little, a light mist.

I almost walk, not run, right past

a tree with a mouth, wide

as a toothless monster—

a site I must’ve passed

many times before.

I do not go inside it. Not

with my head or hands. Yet,

all around it, so many emptied

packs of cigarettes.

I could count them or call them

leaf, leaf, leaf.

Now, distant and all around me,

starts the dizzying hum

of those on their way. I imagine

a silhouette of bodies,

fidgeting in coffee lines, full

of love and outer space,

as I stare into it

that moss-lipped abyss,

as if it could

tell me what to do

with my life,

and it does.

I make my bed almost every morning,

but not every morning.

Some mornings, I feel the river less

than gentle, push me more swiftly

downstream. Now, I am a clump of oak-brown

leaves, a boat for damsel flies, and spiders.

*

Another man across the street has died.

A young couple with one dog and one child,

stands where he is and is no more.

They look over at me,

the third eldest neighbor now, and wave.

*

Last night, I dreamed my pinky finger,

curling now was straight again.

I dipped it, dipstick-like, into the river

to touch the spine of a crawdad.

My whole body went cold then

warm again, and my face, leaning in

to see it, became the river too.