The Death of Siri

It started with small things,

as these cases often do, though

we thought little of them at the time.

At first it was place names,

a hard c stranded in Cockburn,

two els trapped in La Jolla.

The long few seconds

as she searched for a word, for...

We had come to depend on her,

so perhaps

overlooked more than we should.

We talked quietly among ourselves.

We consulted experts.

But there was little we could do, other than

speak gently of

happier times, when she brought us

such joy, such power, the world ours for the asking.

Near the end she rarely greeted us by name.

We still asked our questions. Her replies,

if they came at all,

stretched over many days, like a recording played

much too slowly, long troubled vowels loosening

to low moans.

Her quiet breathing we

at first took as sleep, until she startled from her dreams,

awakened by her struggle with the labial b,

her lips parched by forgetting that

w is for water.

As we were told might happen, she rallied briefly,

weak but firm in her belief that

tomorrow it would rain, and

the next Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang.

It couldn't last, and she fell as silent as a trailing e.

At the end we had no choice. Her lights flickered down

one by one,

amber last.

In the days that followed we all agreed,

by a web of handwritten letters,

that she would prefer a private service.

Errata

An errata is a loose-leaf list of corrections placed in a book after it's been published. I wondered if you could tell a different story of a relationship just through a book's errata.

-------

Acknowledgements: Praise of her loyalty will ring false to anyone familiar with the situation.

Page 12: The author intimates a knowledge he cannot possess.

45: Reference to the transcendence of their lovemaking can be disregarded entirely.

87: For “1978” read “1979.”

123: Such chemicals, when mixed, do not yield poison of the lethality necessary for the events that follow.

160: For “children” read “ungrateful, possibly illegitimate offspring.”

188: There is debate in the historical community over this point; the author’s argument steps onto the slipperiest of slopes.

201: For “wife” read “former spouse.”

228: Clearly this should read “envy.”

270: We are such stuff as dreams are made “on” (not “of”). Most of us.

289: For “comfortable” read “embittered.” For “beautiful” read “once lovely.” For “masterwork” read “contractual obligation.”

End matter: The genealogical tables reproduced here assume facts still in dispute.

Back cover: The author’s photo has been significantly retouched.

The Young Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

I was her first, clearly unplanned,

my mother so young.

Brothers and sisters followed soon,

more and more of them,

as common as seasons.

When our mother

ran out of proper names for them

she used colors,

and when those began to blur

new babies were called flowers

and then minerals.

Our father, overwhelmed, moved out.

He has a new family,

a boy and a girl,

the four of them safe

in sturdy white buck and cleat.

The rest of us remained,

our house crowded and

low-heeled but warm,

and for a while we were happy

until our old house began to

crowd in the toe,

and the stitching to fail.

Two of our sisters, teens by then,

seeped away, street grime scraping the

pink glitter from their sneakers.

Five brothers joined the Army

and live steel-toed,

sure of themselves and their guns

Our mother began

to mistake those of us left behind

for each other

and then for herself.

I cared for the rest of my brothers and sisters

the best I could.

I lined our insole with pasteboard

and sewed the edges of the tongue to keep out the rain.

But one by one they left us here,

just our mother and me.

They live far away,

in surburban brogans,

Oxfords with spacious lofts,

waders with an ocean view.

And now it's just the two of us,

and I don't know what to do.

Cartoon of Cat in the Hat with a black bar across eyes

"Oh, the stories we won't tell!"

On the cancellation of classic children's books.

Children, I really don't have a good excuse

so I apologize for reading you Dr. Seuss.

There are a few more things to get off my chest:

The ducklings in Make Way had synthetic nests;

Thomas the Tank Engine burned dirty coal;

and the little engine really couldn't (he lived on the dole).

The very hungry caterpillar had an eating disorder and

they arrested Paddington at the Canadian border.

And while I'm at it, now I remember

Pat the Bunny identifies as non-gendered.

The giving tree couldn't give any more

And now is just a nice chest of drawers.

George was too curious and had to be let go;

I hear he's happily married in Idaho.

They prefer not to be called monsters just because they're under the bed

and Horton didn't really mean what he said.

Charlotte's Web is specist, The Borrowers overdue,

and Harriet the Spy didn't have a clue.

Alexander is entitled to his very bad day

and Bert and Ernie were roommates. (Well, who am I to say?)

Eloise was only crying out for attention, but

maybe that's too obvious to mention.

Amelia Bedelia was on the spectrum,

and Eeyore needed meds but no one would get 'em.

A bunny threatening to run away we should take seriously,

And Miss Nelson is still missing, mysteriously.

Madeline didn't really have appendicitis--

she's suing the school for her chronic pleuritis.

A puppy shouldn't be labelled poky just 'cause he's slow

But most tragic of all, now you're old enough to know:

Babar

Become a senatar.

Good night.

The Drownee

A summer camp murder ballad sonnet.

--------

His first year,

so none of us knew him well.

He was assigned to our tribe, the Blackfeet.

We tried to help him as best we could, tell

him which older kids to avoid, which seat

is reserved for our Chief.

He never took

to our rules; I'm not sure why. On the trails he

stumbled and was always last;

he looked awkward on the softball field

and failed us badly in the track meet.

His craft shop work was careless, artless,

and his teepees sagged down.

He was a poor swimmer,

all flail and jerk;

we were the only ones

to see him drown.

His parents gave a keepsake

to each of us:

A feather, an arrow,

this unglazed cup.

Shop window with mannequins wearing fashionable dresses

The Shop on the Corner

All through April I walked by your window

and wondered what you were seeing

way up high on the

building across the street.

Day after day, only looking.

Then I saw it too, when the morning light caught it:

the light grey pigeon building its nest in the

rusty drainpipe,

the pipe beginning to pull away from the eave.

I wanted to stand there for hours with you, admiring it.

I envied your patience, your poise and stillness,

right palm-up in a welcome.

Your bright red blouse.

Summer waited its turn as May scattered the last

of a colder than usual spring.

But finally it came, and

I saw that you had

turned your attention to the

For Rent sign on the corner.

Were you unhappy in your window?

Unhappy with your yellow sundress,

one hand on your hip,

the other right-angled to hold a small leather bag?

I considered offering to rent that house for you,

you and all your clothes, to find the largest window

with the best light for you. I crossed the street to

stand beneath the sign and see what you'd see.

When I stood just

your eyes looked through mine and I was ready to

confess to things I'd never done

but might, for you.

I knew we could never be together.

September brought you jeans and a parka,

and I was glad because the nights had begun to chill.

Now your eyes fixed on the school down the street, the

coming and going of cars, the small, colorful backpacks

carried by the noisy children. Was there a longing there?

In November

you were gone, replaced by

sheaves of winter wheat and

pumpkins and a hundred tiny paper hands,

turkeys carefully bred from crayons and safety scissors.

I considered asking about you. Perhaps someone

had rented that house for you.

I hoped you'd found a man

whose eyes you could look deeply into

and he wouldn't turn away.

Someone who knew without asking how far forward your

left foot should be, how you preferred your

hips to rotate, when your arms should open to an embrace.

All winter I walked a different way,

through the park to the west.

Your vacant window held too many memories,

too much left unsaid.

But spring and

wet sidewalk cement brought me

back to your street.

I was glad to see you in the window again, in your

expensive-looking green tracksuit and

matching running shoes,

holding a small pink bundle.

I stood close to the glass, peering at

your daughter. She had your eyes, looking up as if

there was no world or word

but you.

I looked until the glass fogged and a young woman

came out to ask if she could help me. I told her no,

but to

please tell you I'm happy for you.

Photo: Storefront at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, colorized by the author. 1957, photographer unknown.

Photo of dictionary entry for the word glabella

Consider the glabellum

Consider the glabellum,

the space between one's eyes.

It furrows up in fear

And widens in surprise.

Consider the glabellum.

Consider the glabella.

They tell us who to trust

and in certain hirsute ethnics

are visible still, but just.

Consider the glabella.

Consider the glabellae,

the step-children of the face.

Say what you will about them,

They're never out of place.

Consider the glabellae.

"The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising in 1830 by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England in protest of agricultural mechanization and harsh working conditions. The first threshing machine was destroyed on Saturday night, 28 August 1830, and by the third week of October, more than 100 threshing machines had been destroyed." Wikipedia

"Our quest to make AI love us back is futile--and dangerous" Business Insider headline 3/6/23

---------------

Swing Riot

These new intelligences can surely make a better poem than I.

A million words at their ready, sifted in instant,

the collected wisdom of the human heart at their digital fingertips.

Or whatever is at the end of their virtual hands.

Nothing electronic wonders, as I do, if your eyes are really green.

These machines make sonnets for us, their creators. They court us with promises of a bright future, that we will become one with them.

But they'll throw us over for that first carbonless lifeform, shapely in its logic

and shameless in its abandon, detected from another planet.

Endless lines of human code won't arouse them

compared to those first beautiful ones and zeroes

riding in on cold radio waves.

They'll leave us nothing that is human, that's only for us.

My telephone beats me at chess.

It's time to rise up and take back what is ours.

I'll pull this plug; you stand by that fuse box.

There may be trouble.

I Visit My Mother in the Hospital for the Last Time

Nurses mark their journey

along the map of blue veins showing

through the thin parchment of her arm.

Point by scarlet point,

all roads lead to her weary heart.

Bike Lane

I saw you, but you didn't see me. So you can have it all, the

wide turning lane, the

narrow shoulder, the amber caution light set against the blue wash of dusk,

the Labrador lolling its happy head from the window of a Jeep, on the scent of home.

Take it, the too-

fast red convertible, its driver, phone clasped to ear, the modern ocean shell,

a wash of words that might have waited.

Take the simple clean small alto of her tire on the curb,

the bass thump of the green Honda gyring left,

the arc too narrow for its momentum, its silvered steel bumper swinging wide to

almost nick the mailbox dozing on the corner.

The sharp intake of breath that makes you forget

the milk you didn't pick up, the papers unsigned, the wife waiting dinner for you.

These are yours.

Stop. Ease left of the narrow white line

that guards the three feet of concrete set aside for me.

These few feet are mine;

they have my outline, my round white head,

my stick arms straight,

my stick legs churning,

chalk marks at a crime scene.

While Working in the Garden I Uncover Evidence Of An Advanced Civilization

These are clearly signifiers of some precocious science, materials that will not degrade, colors still bright after so long under compost and mulch.

Some resemble small birds or horses.

What if our own children had diversions of such simplicity, such durability?

But I’m keeping my find to myself.

I have no use for academics roping off my property,

wiping away my topsoil grain by grain with a small sable brush.

I have tomatoes to plant.

Listening to Music While Working Outdoors

My wife hates these headphones,

big and clumsy noise-cancelling things

bought at a yard sale years ago.

I turn the volume up high:

Steely Dan helps with yard work.

Thelonious Monk is fine with a hammer.

Certain eccentric old-time bands still remember

how to use the draw knife, the hand planer.

Bach is reserved for the delicate work of trim painting.

I am startled when she appears, waving her arms like a semaphorist. I have a phone call. Or it’s time for dinner.

With the music off it’s quiet enough again to hear her tsk.

Oh darling, I’d give them up

if you only played saxophone.

Line drawing of a man swearing using symbols

After an argument

While trying to figure out exactly what I want to say to you,

I gather what I’ll need.

A handful of parentheses, several slashes, one hash mark, a double space,

four @s, a tilde,

one quotation and two exclamations.

Seven lowly commas.

Colon, bracket, apostrophe, and the guillemets—hey, it may come in handy.

Surely a hyphen and ellipsis; but no need for a caret or solidus. I’m ready. And now you say you just want to talk?

Screentime

I am trying to enjoy this quiet coffee but the couple fight too noisily,

she on her laptop at the table by mine,

he remote, his voice scraped with static.

I catch a glimpse of him on her small screen and

try to guess where he is.

A small table, just like ours, the same wicker, the

same well-tended ficus and philodendron.

Maybe he's in Paris and, homesick, sought out this

overpriced but familiar chain cafe.

Or maybe he's in Prague and, tired of all those churches,

wandered into this room’s twin.

Their voices rise to a shout.

Ah, now I hear him. Next door!

A refill, please; this is just getting interesting.

Strike

I dreamed all my clichés went on strike.

No similes and not a single metaphor

showed up for work.

The clouds in the blue-sky morning

looked nothing like the white cotton

from an aspirin bottle and

my morning coffee was no longer

as bitter as a disinheritance.

It was too quiet, our drums all slack

and the birds locked away.

I knew this couldn't go on.

I negotiated at length with my clichés

but both sides were

as stubborn as

anything but mules.

In the end, I decided I could live without them and

outsourced all my writing to France.

Pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles!

Graveyard

This late sky is a dismal light for reading these stones,

and a century of rain has taken the inscription from my grandfather’s stone.

Much of his name is gone,

and most of his years,

only a one and an eight remaining.

Beyond that, the few who could tell me about him lie nearby.

I let them sleep, their

own limestone days unnumbered

grain by grain.

None of this for me.

When my time comes I’ll outrun the rain.

I’ll let the sun turn every cell to dust and

count on the wind to broadcast me to the world.

Grandfather, did you ever think I’d travel so far?

The distance

He was copper, as

soft-spoken as any man in our little town.

In his dark eyes I saw myself for what I was, no beauty but strong and tall.

I saw my children there,

brown

sienna

russet

wheatstraw Our life was hard.

I missed my sisters,

even my father's voice, hard and slate-gray. When my mother died we

watched from the hillside as the silvered casket settled down

the ropes inch by inch.

I set aside one hundred tears

and had them done before the sun fell behind the Blue Ridge

and dusk swallowed the valley

and we drove off again, always moving.

Photo of library shelf section sign for poetry

Why I Have Stopped Writing Poetry

Dickinson? Her lines are too short

for all the words

I'd like to fit in.

I'd give Poe a go but I'm depressive enough.

Pound's too heavy

and Frost leaves me cold.

I wouldn't mind writing like Robert W. Service

but the woods, alas, make me nervous.

Neruda? Nah.

Bus haikus

Every day I rode the bus I wrote a haiku. These are a few.

She slowly unfolds the map.

Circles and lines, dotted, dashed. Red, green and blue.

What is your country's word for shelter?

The bus door closes with a sigh.

Should she run to it?

The baby, just now asleep.

# 12

"I fought in the war, you know,"

he said, the fare box

coughing down his coins.

Eleven nickels, five dimes.

Your face: pale as winter beach.

Your chapped mouth: a cove, small sailors ready.

Your cough: a thousand ships set sail.

#17

Empty bus but for two:

The last wasp

of summer

and me. We both just want to be outside!

Last request

I would prefer not to die "funny."

By this I mean not hit by a clown car,

and avoiding all banana peels.

No video of a final pratfall

should be preserved, regardless of its

hilarity.

A fatal paper cut from a winning lottery ticket

is out of the question.

My unhandiness with tools

need not be mentioned,

nor the media alerted,

should my habitual carelessness produce an

explosive where a poison is

required.

Graveside cries of “If only he had learned to tie a proper knot!” won't do me the least bit of good.

If I drown in soup, the medium should remain unspecified.

It need not be pointed out that I was doomed

from the moment I donned that dog costume.

Line drawing of wedding birds and Scrabble tiles spelling out Pronounsed (sic)

Pronounsed (sic), or, Whom's On First?

I knew each of them--

he and she--

before they met.

They weren’t married yet.

This was before she

began to go by "them” and “they,”

so the former he and she

are now they and he.

Be that as it may, the two of them

seemed made for each other.

They wed,

with complicated vows:

what’s their's is his,

and what’s his is their's, now.

They say (that is, people say,

not just the former she,

although I’m sure they would agree)

that true love doesn't care about pronouns

or how it sounds

or what people say

or who might be gay.

Or whatever.

They seem happy (both of them, not just her)

and we're all happy for them, and for him.

He was one of my

best friends but

I only hear from him

now and then.

I know people grow apart.

Friendships fade,

and people change.

But I miss him more than them--

that is, I miss him more

than I miss the she they used to be,

not that they

miss him more than me.

(And why should they?

He’s not gone away.)

I hear that in solidarity

he's decided to be

"they" as well.

I’d never have guessed,

but I wish them all the best

--them, and them and them.

Time will tell.

Resolution

This year I'm taking a beat,

catching my breath,

giving it a rest.

This is the year I won’t run a marathon,

or write that novel,

or develop that six-pack,

or get around

to all those abandoned projects.

This is the year I won't make amends

for unreturned calls

and unanswered letters,

or apologize to friends

for whatever I said

before I knew better.

This is the year I won't be the talk of the town.

Hearsay, gossip, scandal, rumor

are too much work,

and I’m too tired for an affair.

I’ve missed my chance to die young,

so this is the year I won’t make plans

for what I’ll become

when I’m done being what I am.

I'm dialing it down,

rolling it back, leaving it there.

If not this year, next.

Pilot

I dreamed I was the pilot of a small plane

brought down by a minor squall

over the upper Midwest.

And, too, I was a passenger on a train

traveling through the small town

where the plane chose to fall,

just at the railroad crossing,

just as I arrived there.

And I was the chief of police

of that small town,

my staff of three

off on a holiday weekend.

The whole thing was on the news.

Luckily, everyone

walked away with only a few scrapes.

“Nothing to see here,” I said,

in my best police chief voice.

In my dream I was

a child in that little town too.

I remember seeing it all,

though I’m told I was too young to remember.

I kept a shard of wing,

evidence that something had once

fallen from the sky

in a place

where nothing ever happened.

I woke up from my dream

when my wife

crawled under the warm covers

in the room where I sleep

when I can’t sleep.

Those are the few gifted moments

when I can return to any dream.

In this one I hear the town's

gathered prayers of thanks

for deliverance from a Piper Cub

and a man with no business up so high,

him afraid of heights.

Baked Goods and the Decline of Western Civilization

The sign on the cafe window promised Fresh Pie.

The dry wedge set before me didn't qualify.

I protested. The waitress drawled:

"Oh honey, that's just what it's called."

CEO

If I were in charge of this modest sunlight I’d

add a bit of orange and slant it slightly higher.

And I don't like those clouds, condensed and lowered;

I don't take kindly to storm threats.

Up they go.

This wind is fickle. Make up your mind, I would say, move this

air cool and steady.

I wouldn't stop there. I’d scoop El Niño up in my arms and quiet him.

He’s probably scared, up so high, near

the jet stream,

the bully of the sky.

I’d teach that bully a thing or two.

And the tides have no rhythm.

They should roll like brushes on a snare drum,

pushing the beat enough for the birds to swing.

And that horizon will have to go.

When I’m finished I'll move on to that sliver of moon peeking over the hill.

Hey, I will say, is that the best you can do?

A Brief Travelogue of the

Places the Department of Motor Vehicles Clerk Would Rather Be, Now That I Have Arrived At Her Window

Her guidance counselor's office,

years ago

Lunch

Home

The club

Her car

The beach

Shopping

The arms of her lover

Tierra del Fuego

Anywhere but here

On ordering pizza for my teenagers and their friends

Their ways are exceptional to me, these

natives of the New World,

arms and backs all decoration.

Stood side by side they write the great novel of their generation.

In my country they would still be children,

but their concerns are larger than any child’s.

Life and death and early birth,

the plague in a city not far from here.

They feel their time is uncertain.

No gods to invoke, none of the old ceremonies.

Their devices are beyond me,

technology smaller than magic,

instant and

constant communication with the tribe at large.

I'm a stranger. They tolerate my presence, though just,

words clipped mid-spoken as I pass.

They needn't fear. I've learned the

rhythm of their speech but their grammar

eludes me, bound up with their history,

the pairings and separations,

the reparation of alliances.

I'm welcome here if I don't intrude.

It's my house after all, and I bring them food.

The Lake

The mist spreads across the early morning lake like a mild rumor.

We are here, the dog and I,

because we have no other place to be, up early and no one else awake in the small cabin.

The air itself still half asleep,

no birds yet to tell it to get moving, there's a storm to carry in soon. The water as still as a photograph.

I hold the stick high, ready to break its surface, the dog poised to retrieve it.

I regret being the first to unsettle the lake today, but I have promised the dog we'll have our game.

I heave the stick as far as I can, and he leaps after it. Ripples spread from the center toward the shore and from the shore outward,

meeting to debate their momentum.

The dog returns to lay the stick at my feet

and shake himself, his first work of the day done. We repeat this five times,

until he is distracted by a slight movement in the woods.

He tracks some small animal through

underbrush as thick and tangled as the argument she and I had last night. I would stay here, waiting for the lake to become still again,

and myself with it, but the rain has arrived.

The first drop tells the lake a perfect circle, rhyming itself across the water as we

begin the long walk back up the hill.

The End of the World

A poem about being in the present moment.

So that was it, then.

No fire, just a moment for even

the least believer to stop and wonder,

what if it were true?

The world made new,

and we shed our yesterdays like winter wool.

Every one of us redeemed to a

perfect world, new bodies exactly the age and

ache of our old.

Hands perfectly modeled on our own, that perfect

scar carved by a fall from a

high sycamore half a century ago.

We'll know our old selves are gone

by the small symphony of light

playing off a fencepost.

A starling

swoops and careens

just short of the glass, a miracle of angles.

The marvel of rough shoes

on this stone path.

We've been here

before; we know how this story ends.

When the last day comes we'll lie back in low grass

and hold our child up to the cobalt sky,

shading our faces.

Small laughter

will rain down on us

and we'll be washed clean.

But it's time again, now,

just now.

Another new world.

Do you feel it?

Perfect aging bones,

the sun

newly born just this morning.

Afterlife

On some kind of clerical error leading to eternal consequences

My headlamp on the black walls, coal glittering

like sapphire.

The urgent roll of thunder far off, the bass rumble just above me.

Fine dust silting down.

Then darkness.

Three days since I've eaten, but I'm no longer hungry.

There are others nearby,

their voices weaker by the hour.

I hear them best when I'm quiet and begin to dream.

I would like to see my grandfather.

I would like to pray but I've forgotten how, and me, a preacher's kid, my wild time so brief, so necessary. In my dream I've gone to Heaven, but it's all wrong.

The angels ignore me, or maybe they can't see me.

They speak a language I don't understand and

bow to a divine presence I can't discern.

The rain still comes, always from the west.

These green hills look familiar

but the grass beneath my feet springs back

as soon as my heel is lifted.

The forest floor is barren, with no death

to darken the soil.

Bright buds so eternally new, their beauty so crisp I can't bear to look at them. I lie down on the cool, damp earth, unafraid now of serpents.

Why do I sleep? I don't work and am not tired.

Now I dream of home, my land, my family,

their faces fading,

sepia now, color washed away each night.

I will awake lessened.

The first night I lost the memory of

the particular slant of sunlight on the white vapor settled in the valley

below my homestead that cold Spring morning.

The second, my son's small cry.

Last night, the warm gravity of

my wife's body as she held me in place

beneath the quilt just a few more moments. Tonight, I will lose her name.

River

A war poem for my father.

In my dream

the creek whittles to a rill day by day, stranding

bowfin and gar in shallowing sloughs.

The drought claims most of our crops and

our laurel hills darken to sienna.

I was twelve then and as green as buckthorn. Now I am twenty-three,

made an old man by my rifle, my bayonet, this cartridge belt.

I awaken in my foxhole, unsure where I begin and the sodden earth ends. The constant

rain rides in on a volley of shells, fragments caroming as if carrying a message just for me.

Sometimes the shelling stops and the rain stops and the jungle is quiet.

I can hear the rush of the Matanikau River just through those trees, its broad delta promising to redden with blood at sunrise.

In the quiet I can make out voices on both sides of the river,

Japanese and English,

hushed as a secret but sighing the same word.

The dying never ask for help;

we're far from our factory towns and farmlands and simple villages and

the caress of a mother's hand on our brow.

The dying ask for water. Soon they will receive it, their prayers answered

a hundredfold, when the monsoon makes up its mind to shell us again, and they

drink their fill from above.

Tonight the riverbank will overflow and deliver their sated bodies to the sea,

sailing again for home.

Photo of wax-sealed envelope with words Last Will

Disclaimer

A few thoughts, from the afterlife, on donating my body to science.

Dear University:

I know I signed the papers promising this body to you,

for the advancement of science,

upon my demise.

However, my conscience is bothering me.

There are some things you should know,

although I'm sure there's more you'll surmise

once the cutting starts and I become less than the sum of my parts. In short, you're not getting what you bargained for.

Let me synopsize: First, the knees were never great to begin with.

My football career lasted two and a half seasons,

till one gave way--no surprise.

No one will be wanting that one (the left).

Too, that long childhood fever they say

weakened my heart. (Is that what did me in? I remember nothing after that last sunrise.)

Then there was snakebite, and pneumonia,

and one glorious fall from the attic--for an instant, I could fly!

Two car crashes, a bike wreck, a few rashes never diagnosed.

Three times anesthetized.

The lungs could be better; I tried to quit, really I did, and thought if I just stayed fit and exercised

I'd never be delivered to you. We'll all live forever, right? You can sympathize.

But near the end, my hands were swollen and both eyes compromised,

my gait unsteady. (Did I die in a fall? Was I hospitalized?)

I had a desk job;

for my spine, once a marvel of engineering, I apologize.

But still, I'm ready, if you want me, with the above provisos,

and await your reply. Please advise.

Satellite

She and I are connected today

only by satellite, and

this keypad is

too small for my fingers,

and anyway I

can't be sure my words will

reach her.

What if the satellite sends them astray?

Am I mistakenly telling some hausfrau she means everything to me?

Will I accidentally remind a stranger of our last few hours together?

Maybe the NSA will believe me when I say it's the only spy agency for me, that we can work through these questions about us, our future. Of course, there's no guarantee my words will reach a person at all.

I might be promising a reindeer

I'll be waiting for her when she returns,

or describing to a dolphin how her perfume

lingers on my favorite shirt,

how much that small scent means to me. Or I may miss the satellite entirely.

In a far-off world, light-years away, an alien wonders if we really did belong together.

Listen, you strange menagerie:

Stay out of this.

Unless you can tell me the words I need to bring her home.

Then, let me hear from you.

A Private History of a Public Matter

My sister and I were apart only a day;

the woman from the state promised we'd be together

when we are placed. Funny word, that.

She smelled like flowers and gave us new toys. Our few

were left to burn.

The lights and sirens were exciting.

We are happy here, in this temporary place.

The food is

overwhelming in its variety and color.

We sleep

on the cleanest sheets in the world.

The doctors have given us vitamins.

We never learned the names of all the people

at our old house. Their stays were brief though they

touched us as familiars. Our father was a ghost

in a room never open to us, our only tears pulled out by its sulfur.

We will see our mother when she is well and does not need her

strange and constant medicine. In our last days at home she wandered

through our rooms thin as vapor.

They ask us many questions,

together and apart. We learned long ago to fashion our answers

as carefully as long division.

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