As my wife snuck into our son’s room to swap his tooth
for money, I imagined this scene playing out decades ago,

Dad, tired from a long day’s work, keeping his fingers crossed
that I stay asleep, Mom, tired too, tiptoeing to my bed that…

art is for the rich
(the world has gone bananas)
artists should be poor

At seventy-eight and eighty-one, Mom and Dad
are still going strong. Halfway between twelve and thirteen,
Chance, our Beagle, is still going strong. Civilization…

The first time I was called a poet, I took offense,
for poetry is good for nothing: it neither
makes love nor wages war, nor pays the bills.

To my tongue, honeysuckle tastes fibrous and bitter, like
any common shrub or vine. I only know its sweetness indirectly:
hummingbirds guzzling the nectar like a newborn
her mother’s milk while I sit in the shade and imagine
a branch soaked in honey, my head forced back,
sugar dripping down my throat like a panacea.

I dreamt I was a kelp forest swaying in pitch-
-black waters. Above me moonlight fluttered

like confetti and seagulls roosted on cliff-sides
and buoys. An oil tanker drifted by, the workers

The adults hurry to their cars as the bell rings,
the crossing guard sips his water, takes off his vest:
Today the children will read of warriors and kings…