Birthday (audio only)
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It was all so different than he expected.
For years he’d been agnostic; now he meditated.
For years he’d dreamed of being an artist living abroad;
now he reread Baudelaire, Emerson, Bishop.
He’d never considered marriage . . .
Still, a force through green did fuse.
Yes, he wore his pants looser.
2022
I’m sorry I cannot say I love you when you say you love me. The words, like moist fingers, appear before me full of promise but then run away to a narrow black room that is always dark, where they are silent, elegant, like antique gold, devouring the thing I feel. I want the force of attraction to crush the force of repulsion and my inner and outer worlds to pierce one another, like a horse whipped by a man. I don’t want words to sever me from reality. I don’t want to need them.
2007
The pony and the deer are trapped by tanks,
and the lady with the guitar is sad beyond words.
Hurtling across the sky, a missile has mistaken
a vehicle for a helicopter, exploding in a ball
of white flame. Upside-down birds—red specks
of knotted wool—glow above the sideways trees.
Hidden among plants, a barefooted boy waits—
like the divine coroner—aiming his rifle at something,
enjoying the attentions of a gray doggy, or maybe
there’s a bullet already in his head.
2013