Curiosity

That morning,
as the news chattered

about broken records
we discovered the sandbox

––a haven for all things
static and plasticized––

frozen solid. The arms
of plastic men beckoned.

The maples bent over
with interest and ice.

With a few hours of work,
the action figures could have been

drying on the dish rack,
Spider Man dwarfed

by the china platter,
The Hulk roaring

face down into the dish towel,
but the howling alarm

from across the street
of a car impaled

by a fallen tree limb
shook us instead

into discovering
how difficult it is to tell

the difference between
shattered glass and ice.

Anecdote

There is also the matter of my uncle,
who, after the crash, was found

to have bent the steering wheel
around its steady column. His arms

are slack now, the skin loose, room
for so much more than is there,

but that day, so my aunt tells it,
the ring of the wheel curved in

on itself, like a taco shell, she always
says––for this is not the first time

we have heard the story; waiting
room, funeral home, church,

a podium facing lacquered pews––
weather always the same bone-

dry desert wind and a cloud of dust
that scuds onto the road, obscuring

the telephone pole like clockwork.
This is where we, having known

him, still manage to expect some
casual line, I'll be goddamned, when in fact

he was clearly blessed, but no matter
the repetitions, the story always ends

the same way: steering wheel bent
with his own two hands, hands that opened

the twisted door of the old truck,
brushed the glass from his shirt.

The Personhood of Great Apes

Giraffes will kick their children over
when they try to stand at birth.

The nature special exhibits this
sad comedy as it happens time

and time again, until the infant
stands on wobbling knees and takes

a step backward to catch itself.
Then the mother starts to run.

John says this is what god intended
parenting to be, formative and

brutal––Kara says he's full of something
she fails to enunciate as the child

hefts its still-damp lank, takes
a buckling step and begins

to sprint. Commercials follow, buttoning
the moment shut, and I think, among

the empty pizza boxes and the couch
cushions none of us can stop

eviscerating piece by tiny piece, maybe
this is time's estranging project: that

every memory recalled can be altered;
that even when you tell the truth

someone will think you are lying.


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Blood Travels

In the planetarium, an indigo bunting,
wings clipped to keep her away
from the falsely turning sky, navigates

toward the most stationary star. She will
do the same given a sky full of made-up
constellations. She recalibrates in days.

Long haul truckers drive
the circumference of earth in distance
and continue, like starting a novel

over again the moment it is finished.
The tree upheaves the sidewalk daily.
Your blood travels miles per hour.

When you understand what you are
running from, the difference between
exploration and exile is negligible,

the quarter mile of platform
past the depot beckons you to chase
after every departing train.

On Viewing Family Photos After Christmas Dinner

My aunt's yellowing fingernail traces
her nervous smile, and this is when
I'm wondering whether I'll live
to see next year. Trust her to drop
this into casual conversation––
the growing fetus, her desperate
youth––then leave the moment
to hang like a dislocated limb.
In sixth grade gym, Tony Bower's arm
twisted, vine-like away from his body.
We were told not to look, though
all of us did as the teacher rested
a foot on his chest, told Tony,
told us all, he would count to three.
He pulled on two. Her son walks in,
and though he tells her, tells us,
don't be melodramatic, I hear
a limb being steadied, grasped,
wrenched back into place.

How to Block an Alpaca Knit Scarf

The skin recognizes
what was hair, what pleases
the skin to be close, don't

give it a name
when you drown it,
don't celebrate or take

too reverent a time
stretching it past normalcy
and pinning down

its length. That said,
be kind––the fabric is weak
when saturated, too heavy

to do anything but sag itself
long and lacking if allowed.
Sort the rest of the laundry

by color, steady
your folds and do not think
too much about the fur

on your arms, gold
in the dingy basement light as you
brush the hair away from your eyes.


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Savonarola II

"Your city is now the city of God."
-Girolamo Savonarola

What do you expect a man to say
when he wants nothing
but your salvation? It wasn't
the threat of damnation
that got to us––we could tell
the time of day by his shadow
in the cathedral––it was the boys,
fanciulli, who went door to door,
asking us but what if he's on
to something? People have always
had a problem with the scrutiny
afforded by mirrors. It seemed
natural, that our reflections be
made enemies of ourselves.
You can't imagine how the palaces
shone in that dingy light,
the teeth of crenellations gnawing
at the city they overshadowed.
The proud, he said, fall
prey to themselves, and that was all
we needed to know about justice.

Eavesdroppings

We had lunch in the train station, herring, pickles, potato salad, vodka. Everything Russian. I told him today is such a poem and that my friend says that everything is a poem.––What did he say?––He said, well, he laughed.

Lounge Car: Charlie

I bought a Volkswagen after my tour in Germany,
top speed of maybe 75. Just enough to keep up

with the autobahn. The trains don't even chug
anymore, just sway. I say the most polished surface

in the world might be the top of the rails, which reminds
me of the bumper of that old Beetle which reminds me

of the absence of cow-catchers on trains today,
which didn't catch cows so much as split them in half.

It must have been the chill of the water that did it, holding
out his left hand that looks like a fractured cup, that one

long fissure in the brown earthen mug that refuses
to part, fingers at permanent grasp around the palmed scar.

They don't give you a purple heart for washing dishes
but they do send you home with your gun and hope

you finish the job––the war, some vendetta of the mind
against the flesh––yourself. He chuckles like the train wheels.

Lounge Car: Becky

The second time she ran away she ended up
in North Dakota, and works a quilt beside me
as we hurtle through the badlands.

The only time I ever followed my grandfather
down to the river, I first met a bear that was eating
out of his palm. T-T-T-T-T go the telephone poles,

T-T-T-T-T go the shadows at a slant. He told me
sometimes friends shouldn't meet one-another.
The bowed grass and the flatlands convince me

that the bales of hay have rolled themselves.
The machines are all show. On the third night
the tree is tied with skulls at compass points.

The men, they cut, here––she pokes my chest, left
and here, right, and dance until the horns break
through the skin. Think about the forces

between passing trains, whether a bird flown
in between would feel the pull of east and west
and split, wing from wing, or if a balance

is struck between the points, and this bird (a starling,
probably, swooping over fresh cut grass beside the tracks)
could nest in the stillness of a storm that's all eyes.