There once was a planet who was both
sick and beautiful. Chemicals rode through her
that she did not put there.
Animals drowned in her eyeballs
that she did not put there—
animals she could not warn
against falling in because
she was of them, not
separable from them.
Define sick, the atmosphere asked.
So she tried: she made
a whale on fire
somehow still
swimming and alive.
See? she said. Like that,
kind of. But the atmosphere did
not understand this, so the planet progressed in her argument.
She talked about the skin
that snakes shed, about satellites that circled her
like suitors forever yet never
said a word.
She talked about the shyness
of large things, how a blueberry dominates
the tongue that it dies on.
She talked and talked and
the atmosphere started nodding—
you could call this
a revolution, or just therapy.
Meanwhile the whale spent the rest of his
life burning (etc., etc., he sang a few songs).
When he finally died
his body, continuing
to burn steadily, drifted down
to the ocean floor.
And although the planet
had long since forgotten him—he was merely one
of her many examples—he became
a kind of god in the eyes
of the fish that saw him as he fell. Or
not a god exactly, but at least something
inexplicable. Something strange and worth
briefly turning your face toward.

They come home with our daughter

because there’s no one at school

to feed them on the weekends.

They are mates, and like all true

companions they are devoted

and they bite. We set their cage

on the kitchen table and wait

for the weekend to end, for our girl

to fall asleep so we can talk

about god while the rats lick

the silver ball that delivers

the water one drop at a time.

There are so many points on which

you and I disagree: the value

of a clean counter, the purpose

of parent-teacher conferences,

what warrants a good cry or calling

you a name so cruel I make myself

whisper it through my teeth. God

is the least of it. When I think

I’m so angry I could hit you

in the face, you turn yours to me

with a look of disbelief. The rats,

meanwhile, have turned up the volume.

Tick, tick, says the silver ball

as their teeth click against it, thirsty

as ever, thirstier still at night

when the darkness wakes them.

And during the day, when they’re curled

together in their flannel hammock,

head to tail, two furry apostrophes

possessing nothing but each other,

paws pressed together as if in prayer—

to what gods do they prostrate

themselves then? God of fidelity? God

of forgiveness? I lied when I said

I didn’t believe. Who—even me,

the coldest of heart—could turn away

from a sea parted, bread that multiplies

to answer need, water transformed

to the sweetest wine, the kind

that tastes better for each year

it’s been left in the barrel?

I didn’t want to break     my own heart     

oh no you didn’t      exist as a point on a plane     

in a modern philosophy of time     my new thing  

   

nope not today     in a world where transcendent 

incompetence is easy to spot     if that’s what you want to see     

and efficiency is still the enemy     of poetry and of love

     

oh no you didn’t write     poems on forgetting     fearsome leave-taking     

or crypto-amnesia     that act of forgetting     to cite fierce attachment     

nope     today is a day to be free     to transcend pedestrian realities  

   

O ethical imperative     dire as plagiarism nope     

O emotional appropriation     not today     

one form of redress     is if you write me a letter   

  

I will write you back      give and take means 

no hearts broken     if we concede to exist     

as a sudden broken thing     not fearful enemies of love      

we grow fierce as yes     transcendence yes     

on a plane in the sky     or in my mind     

no you didn’t forget     nor did I     nope not today