Lately I find myself slightly out of step,
like a man trying to catch up
to a scrap of paper
on a windy day.
Around me twirl the dancers in perfect time,
shoes shiny and stomping out
their happy tunes,
a blur.
I stand in the middle
unable to focus.
Is that why it’s called
middle age?
You use it up greedily
without regarding the tube,
and spit.
Comes a day when you
roll up the spent living
to see what remains.
Now measure, and savor,
each minty morning after
another death-taste night.
Old love is like an old suit of clothes,
well-worn at the elbows and knees
from all the years of hard work and
from all the crawling. At one time,
perhaps, you could have said it was
comfortable, but now it’s just small
and sad — tight through the back
and arms, harder to move, harder
to breathe, you just have to suck in
your waist, hold your breath, and zip.
New love is like a new penny that
glints in the sun so you pick it up
for luck, shiny and bright, a perfect
circle with perfectly smooth edges,
and turn it over and over in your
pocket where no one else can see.
You have become a collector of
pretty things that catch the light,
a blackbird caching treasures.
Old suits are worn at weddings
and funerals — your funeral —
the black wool blend pressed crisp,
the creases sharp, the collar stiff
as a cadaver, everything neater
than when you were living.
They’ll say such a perfect match,
cut from the same cloth. No one,
not even the undertaker who
bathed and dressed you, will
notice the small copper disk
in your left breast pocket, resting
on your rock-still heart, a treasure
to take with you to the ground.
Like the second angel
on the head of a pin,
not knowing where to stand;
like the first day of school
I was nervous, too,
until you took my hand.
I took Clover and Junebug for a walk in the woods
in the cold clear light of an October morning.
They panted small white clouds of breath, short
sharp reports on the squirrel who got away.
All the world was orange and gold turning to dry
brown, inevitable as rust and every bit as lovely.
Leaves and seeds and apples and acorns fall
and rot and the worms turn them to soil and
the Earth is fed the sustenance of the season.
The sun burns its holy dazzling light through
the mist; what more could one man ask?
After eleven hours in bed, I woke to new snow.
The land and I, we need our long rest after the short,
hectic season. If the trees didn’t shed their leaves,
their limbs would snap like brittle bones under
the weight of snow. Even this white pine will drop
half her needles so the snow will blow though easier.
Yes, her, I see the white pines as women, something
in the way they move attracts me, they bow and shimmy
and step aside to let winter rush on by, while the red pines
are men who stand tall in lines and face the bullets.
Red pines are like El Greco figures, gaunt and saintly;
white pines are Degas dancers bending to tie their shoes.
Ice is forming on my bark, but inside my sap runs warm.
pleasure of living
pain of dying
we fight
it’s the most
we can say
pain of living
pleasure of dying
we fuck
it’s the least
we can do
you’re my war
i’m your whore
petite vie
petite mort
ever more
i.
We talked about
the lives of saints:
the hermits,
the crazies,
the healers,
the cutters,
pain and pleasure
joined together
in mystic union
with God.
Who among men
would not fast
for a taste
of the Divine?
ii.
Body and blood,
bread and wine,
I’ll eat yours,
you eat mine.
Two become one.
iii.
Two come
as one.
Sweet Jesus!
