Ways Poets Go Crazy (audio only)
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They Call This
A young mother on a motor scooter stopped at a traffic light, her little son perched
on the ledge between her legs; she in a gleaming helmet, he in a replica of it, smaller, but
the same color and just as shiny. His visor is swung shut, hers is open.
As I pull up beside them on my bike, the mother is leaning over to embrace the child,
whispering something in his ear, and I’m shaken, truly shaken, by the wish, the need, to
have those slim strong arms contain me in their sanctuary of affection.2013
The Gaffe
1 If that someone who's me yet not me yet who judges me is always with me, as he is, shouldn't he have been there when I said so long ago that thing I said? If he who rakes me with such not trivial shame for minor sins now were there then, shouldn't he have warned me he'd even now devastate me for my unpardonable affront? I'm a child then, yet already I've composed this conscience-beast, who harries me: is there anything else I can say with certainty about who I was, except that I, that he, could already draw from infinitesimal transgressions complex chords
2010
My Mother's Lips (audio only)
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1992