OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMEN WHO WALK IN TENNIS SHOES AROUND THE MALL FOR EXERCISE BUT TAKE THE ESCALATOR BETWEEN FLOORS:

you have fooled no one

MY FATHER'S COAT

I stepped out
last night after
my family had
gone to sleep.

There was already
frost on the windows;
so, I took
my father’s coat.

It had been
many years since
I last wore his
heavy clothes.

Always a blanket
or tent as a child,
my father’s shirts
and jackets would
swallow us whole.

As I took into the
December night, however,
the sleeves fell short,
the shoulders hugged mine.

And I realized that
it was not the coat
that would overwhelm me
as I grew older,

it was the man.

DECEMEBER 24TH

it is a heavy night
a metallic blue
a wind that blows like billowing sheets
a cold pocket watch from a grandparent long dead
a still horse
a silver dollar moon

and the trees shake like impatient children

it is a heavy night
a line from Frost
a loaded gun
silence

THANKSGIVING POEM

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving.
My family, a small band of nomads,
brought popcorn, pop tarts and lemonade
gravy and we sat, as we always do

watching the children as they rise and spin
and tremble with adolescence.

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving
because in the quiet hours I could
sneak down to the sandy shore and
scribble these half-written words,

pulling small pieces of bread out of my pockets
and hoping the small bird of a poem would come.

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving
because it is immeasurable, and I,
artificially large, needed to remember
that I am thankful.

Ocean

I am, once again, drawn into its vastness,
how its rolling waves are a watery canopy,
how beneath there wakes a still unconquered dragon.

I do not think we are deceived by the
ocean’s great depth of wide stretch.
I think we are afraid, rightfully afraid,
at how something so un-owned can still stir.

Reflection

At the gym today
I noticed that the
treadmills all face
the mirrors.

Strange, as most of
us beating the bouncy
pavement are most comfortable
running from reflections.