The Brooklyn Rail

Veteran

I trace
your name
in the wall
with my fingertip

just like I do
the keyhole
of our front door
when I come home
alone (again) late,
drunk, and cautious
to enter but needing to
anyway because I live
here,
now,
still,
and without you.

Everything is Extra

the pulse is impermanent, the lung
is the one organ we can have a direct dialog with

joy can be something private and personal
it doesn't have to be shared

even death is not a permanent condition
rest easy sitting in the uncomfortable seat
sink deeper into that chair, tie a lead weight
to your ankle and stay

leave the money on the table

Ananke

It wasn’t just one decision that got you here.
It was a series of choices and that’s true
for any moment. Even the first one.

Does it feel good to be doing
exactly what you told yourself
it would feel so good to do?

No. Life is disappointing? Or
disappearing? Actually, it’s both.

The phone doesn’t ring anymore. Not because I am unpopular
(which I am). It’s because of the phones and what they’ve
become. Little soul vibrators, mouthing alerts into the ether of my
one room. But the ether don't care either.

You know what a dictator wants—you don’t need to wonder.

They don't need to implant anything in me,
I carry it willingly

on my person
at all times.

Meeting Vonnegut on the Titanic

I fell asleep in bed and awoke on the Titanic.

That’s a round about way of saying, I dreamt
I was on the Titanic. I said it long like that because
a writer I admire very much once told me
“no one wants to read about your dreams.”
Nevertheless.
Two people are with me on the Titanic.
Tony (the poet) and Billy Pilgrim.

We’re reclined and sunning ourselves
on the top deck--watching our shipmates stroll
along in perfect bliss.

The day is a stunner. The air is warm but not hot.
And the sky is the same pristine blue as it was
on that morning in September, before anything collapsed.

Everyone’s clothes are impossibly white. I’m grinning
at them and they’re grinning at me. We are all glowing.

And that’s it—the entire dream.
Everyone was happy and nothing sank.

Antiversary

Today at the office they rescinded my raise
on my first day of being off
anti-depressants in 8 years.

Do I still celebrate? I'm not even sure I know
what an accomplishment is anymore.
I won the brain, but lost the wage.

It's the third or fourth year of a pandemic. I can't be
sure. Time has gotten very lazy. It used to be revered
for its reliability. So did I, but for being late. Not anymore

I pulled my shit together and get to work on time now.
It's the foundation of my new identify--a human on time.
Remote work has made a clock of me.

I still have to justify why I shouldn't be underpaid
over video to a Brady Bunch of boxes
And I have to explain it in charts and tables
instead of beats and ferocious breath

I keep thinking
I could just stop fighting
and still be underpaid.

Giving up can also be an accomplishment.

All that time
All this time

In the driver's seat.