poetry
Opening Line
Last night I dreamt of the perfect opening line
to a poem that would, I had no doubt, piece
back together the crumbling world. It was a line
that drew you in, breathless, that made you drop
everything—coffee, that online shopping cart
one click from arriving at your door—and pay…
Regret
I have put pen to much that I ought not have
written, including, perhaps, these very words.
I have mistaken Ragweed for Goldenrod,
alleyways for gardens, watched them torn out,
Mourners
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the graves we stumble on in schools, churches,
nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners…
Ukraine
long before the stamps commemorating peace,
before factories resumed churning out grenades,
some made off with blueprints for conquest,
taped them to the walls of their dreams
Tonight I’ll dream that a colony of ants has dragged
me out to sea, where I discover my belongings and I
have become so much flotsam and jetsam.
What is left after the groceries are put away?
Dishes on the drying rack, nothing to clean:
all is as it should be, or so they say.
Funeral Procession
On a drizzly morning walk I stopped to let a hearse go by,
its pitch-black paint sweating polish, and as I waited
for the procession I thought about who profits from tragedy,
the business of loss, and who profits no matter what,
Blank
In Xinjiang, 7,000-miles
away, a morning sun, reflecting off the
glasses of early risers, the windshields
of commuters, is so bright as to redact
last night’s graffiti: Down with Xi.
If life is a lucid dream or some near-perfect
computer simulation, do I risk waking up
to a world in which I can’t embrace you?