Poetry

Go Gentle If You Need To

Mom in the hospital,

a breathing device shoved into her throat.

Only hours left.

Dylan Thomas told his father

to rage against the dying of the light.

If mom wanted to go, needed to go,

she should go.

Some may need to rage,

hold onto breath even if dark

creeps into the room and the lungs

give up. Others may need to

let go, let go.

We can hold their hand,

say we love them.

It may not be much.

It may be everything.

Porch Party

Several Tang Dynasty poets

Come over for a porch party.

It might get raucous.

They may loathe being called

up from the Afterlife

to visit an American suburb—

we have no mountain streams

though our mall has a fancy gym

called The Edge. Sometimes

I think I’m slipping off the edge

of America, nothing to break

my fall. Even poetry

can’t do that though it will try.

My Tang friends stay less

than an hour.

They seem happy to go home.

Li Po speaks for them all when he says

“Here’s the moon.

We hope it covers the wine.”

Dream Control

Last night I went to bed listening to

Eydie Gorme which usually makes

me relax. I dreamed of being lost

in a terrible storm. A friend turned blue

and drowned. Buildings became poisonous snakes

circling around me. City Hall got tossed

against a department store’s breaking door.

My fifth grade teacher fell dead on the floor—

Ms. M, my favorite. I decided

to pitch Eydie--I can’t risk a new flood.

Maybe I’ll watch a rerun or a weird

movie like The Monkees fab flop called Head.

No more nightmares that cover me in mud,

my pillow a rowboat that disappeared.

Kill for It

A stray bullet memory

shatters my calm—Tom K flat out

saying “I’m going to kill you,”

He called me a faggot,

whatever that meant—

I guessed kids like Tom K

were happy to kill for it.

I started taking strange routes

home from Jackson Junior High,

named for a man who created

the Trail of Tears.

I still feel marked,

millions of Tom K’s

more than willing

to finish the job.

Optimister

He’s terribly terribly excited

about the future--it will be tossing

the moon basketball through

a star hoop and ending up in

a space garden, clean underwear

pressed by angels. Death

will disappear like pollen. War?

That was so twentieth century.

Climate change, yes, it’s real,

but 8 billion people will hug

the Arctic close.

He left me pooped. Someone

I love said hope is that thing

with feathers.

She’s right.

It has to fly away.