Kindling

It is September, and the lake
is several yards from the pier.

The dirty water is mud and
bugs and a reflection of this

bone dry town. The people
are asleep in the dry lake bed,

holding their cracked heels and
dusty children. The trees and

dried up bougainvilleas will
burst into flames at any moment.

Somewhere, there is a cigarette,
a match, or an errant spark.

On it is written the ghastly history
of this soon unforgettable pyre.

Stitched

Come let me take you
on a tour of this
patchwork campus.

On thin threads
we will bob and
weave through the
fabric of this place.

I will show you
every stitch of a student,
every hem of tradition.

We will walk from
square to square
on needled legs,

sewing our colors,
picking up where others
left off.

And one day,
years from now,
reclining and still,
we will pull
this campus over our
cold bones

and be warmed
by its quilted memories.

DA 1060

I'm sharing a Dallas-bound
Delta flight with a pastor
and a salesman.

If this were the beginning of a
joke, I am sure that I
would be a rabbi.

The pastor is kind and
engaged and speaks of himself
in muted arrogance. it is
not a fault as much as it is
a hazard of his occupation.
Sheep seldom follow shepherds
that are sheepish.

The salesman is in a unique
balancing act between boasting
and confession. He tempers every
story with a plea for acceptance.
Every jewel he holds up to
the light, he carefully lays at
the feet of the pastor.

I am far from their
conversation, the beard
offering a certain purchased distance
from middle-age, conservative America.

I wonder, if in the same conversation,
I would quickly show my better side.
"I'm returning form a mission trip."
"I've been to your church of 635"
"I also know Jesus"

Or would I tell him that me
Bible is in my checked luggage,
and I carry it around like a weight?

Would I tell him that I don't
trust him or his designer shoes?

Confessions of a Scaredy-Cat

I killed a grasshopper.
It was slender and green
and landed next to me.

I was scared of what
it would fel like, its
little legs clawing at
my cupped hands.

So, I killed it
with a shoe.
I collected its remains
with tissue paper and
trashed it next to an
empty box of cookies.

I hope this poem
serves as a proper burial.

On Seeing a Young Ballet Dancer on a Transatlantic Flight

Long, lithe arms that
hang like windless flags,

shoulders rolled back, set
like teacups on a high shelf,

feet, in first position,
in basketball shoes,

in a body, that for
the first time, makes

me think I'm dieing.

Bauby in Madison Square Park

It is ten o’clock in the evening,
and I have just finished reading
Bauby’s small kite of a memoir.

The winds of Madison Square Park
have been strong enough to keep the toy afloat,
and now, as its last blinked words are read, the
canvas, cross, and carefully knotted tail
fall carelessly to my feet.

As I look up, I see an art installation,
some decapitated Madonna without child,
French royalty or the American poor.

To my left the carnival lights
of a local dive are pulling in travelers
that leave with milkshakes, burgers, and
a sense of the authentic.

Perhaps more authentic, is the
elderly black man who holds the bench
beside mine like a paperweight,
a bottle cap, or a lost shoe.

He is searching through his belongings
with a flashlight that reminds
me of my grandfather, and I wonder
if he would be as curious as me,

curious why the black man has a shopping cart
and no receipts and a pregnant suitcase with
no ticket out of this New York park.

A mosquito bites my thumb and I
shoo it away, thinking about how
Bauby held on so mummified but
feeling everything. I turn again to
my homeless neighbor, wondering
how he does the same.

St George's, New York City

The stained glass of St. George’s
has all the jeweled colors of an
Amish quilt, and the wooden pews
sigh psalms as the congregation sits.

The chandeliers that hang are overgrown
hummingbird feeders, and it is not
uncommon to see the quick wings
and hovering of this New York crowd.

At the front of the church there are
two great cities of pipe organs that
rise like reclaimed civilizations on
the left and right of the altar.

In what Catholics would call the sacristy,
there is a cerulean sky with descending
stars. An epiphany hangs in the apse like
a mace, an ornament, an unmoving
pendulum for this great clock of faith.


And not to be missed, in shorts and a
blue t-shirt, I am here in my quilted
skin and woven beard, an echo of those
who have been before, fanfare for
those who will come after.

I am here, a prayer tied with my tongue,
hidden in the marrow of these ribs
that like the heavy wooden beams above me
support this broken but hopeful body.