Epitaph

Grace

In the undone sink of dishes. In
The full cat box.
In the telephone with no dial tone.
In the hurting of your loved one, or the
Total exhaustion of spirit.
That means you’ve been through something.
And there is grace in it.
There is exercise in the heavens.
There is not stillness—ever—there is no
Such thing as fear, doubt or false
Intentions.
There is grace in the single cricket facing death in an alleyway
As he sings you, city dweller, to sleep.
In the cold remnants of a great meal. In
The temperature dropping below freezing.

Every day it arrives. This
Sharpening
Of the soul.

Always

I am there in the bed
on
top of the covers
waiting for the thunder to start
so I can
go to the closet and
retrive an umbrella. Go down
and wait
to open it
for a
few seconds
while the rain lands on my head. There’s always
that. The cold rain.
There’s always anger and
being pissed off in the evenings too.
Screaming
silently at the wall, gesturing
at the dumb blank wall.
There’s always the cat in the morning
jumping onto bed and
I don’t want to touch her
though she hasn’t been touched in two or three days
so I’ll give in.
There’s always telephone numbers
and websites and the tunnels
between them that
people dig.
The RMV and City Hall.
Parking permits and broken
washing
machines and visits
from our parents.
There’s always the neighbor
watering her flowers
from a red can in a tanktop and shorts and
her lopsided hair, telling me about her
deceased dog and
psychics. And the men power
sanding
and sawing and making plans for buildings
and buildings that will be changed or
destroyed, and the wealthy
dogs
with their women and the poor crazy men
with bandaged fingers
waiting for change at the laundromat.

There’s always all of that.

And there’s me and then there’s
you and there’s
the both of us.

I don’t feel them though. I only feel
you in the bed, and the fan
blowing on me
and the quietness of the new apartment
we’ve moved
into together, and that
little sound under my ribs that’s
already
starting while it’s still dark.
That little sound of day
in me
that will
stand up when I stand up, and start to
boil
when I go outside and it will bubble
till I go to sleep with you, you
there you are,
and a few stars will still be in between leaves
and the cat will hop upon our bed.

There’s that every day.

What I'm Doing

Now is when it’s
most
important.
When it
seems useless, or
impossible.
Where the end of one
night
accordions forward
years, years
and looks
itself in the face
and
with
remorse, accepts
its fate.
When the mirror
turns
its back on you.
When you dream of swimming in tar with
the mammoths and
saber
tooth tigers.
This is when. This is it.
When time is no one
and
nothing worth loving. When
there
is but one of you.
One plum on the earth.

The Intimacy Of Time

You stare at the long-nosed

witch doctor.

It stares back.

Val

I liked Val because he
didn’t say anything. He just
asked me what I wanted done
and I’d respond in whatever fashion
I could muster; a little bit here, shorter
here etc. And then he’d go to work.
First, he’d fold my collar down
and wrap a length of gauze at my throat. Then
he’d pick up his shears and tap them a few
times against the comb.
Val worked fast, even around the ears. I knew
he wouldn’t cut me. He was a pro.
He had a few strange pictures of sickly
adolescents on his stand. One of a woman
I presumed to be his wife. A
cell phone. Cash tips. A magazine clipping
featuring the shop. I liked Val
because he didn’t say anything. Except, when
he was all done, he’d back away and lift his hands
and say: Now you are new again.