Houses

I guess time will keep going
and someday you will be my size
squeezing into too-small spaces
to play guest in your daughter’s childhood
—and you’ll make this face to me then, too
from a house we both fit into,
as I come up your driveway, saying hello
from my car ride up to see
how life is coming along for you, roles shifted
to everyone’s next stage. Dinner will be on
the stove, your children’s happy shouts
the soundtrack of your joy, as yours are mine.
But for now: be small, and I will gladly fit
into your play-houses and blanket forts,
soaking up these tiny droplets
of a timeless time to cherish: mine in memory
and yours the foundation of a long life yet to live.

October 2020

What's next?

what’s beautiful
is not the ugliness
but how the human
heart can respond:
OK, what’s next?
and pivot to joy.

October 2020

Unseen Half

Why not stare at both halves—
bright hope
dark mystery
—disregarding science
whose dusty shelves protest
there’s nothing there but dust.
Nah. I think I can see
the rest of it, in shadow
black-clad actress downstage
moving scenery, out of the light.
My phone can’t capture it,
the fire, that is, along the edge
so slender you can’t really see it,
but
what do camera phones, like science
even know of light
and dark,
of alien horsemen
riding hard along the shadow’s edge
now lit, now hidden,
in some industrial age
on a moon we’ve never seen?

October 2020

I’m simple
stupid, unimpressed 
and unimpressive
but the fires rage
boiling water into steam

and onward I churn—
here’s something,
here’s some more,
which no-one asked for
& few enjoy, but
here’s even more,
I’m honestly sorry;
I can’t seem to turn
this spicket off—
here’s more dumb shit,
goddamn it, sorry 
for taking up space.

November 2020