To My Daughter Grace, Nine Years Old
The sky had already dimmed, the field
a stigmata of grey we ran through until
I looked higher to notice an aquarium
of many-toothed stars schooled above us
where just before clouds held the dusk’s
reflection like oiled wool. And even a bat
appeared without warning, dropping from
above as if on string, spelling the air in dark,
cursive swoops. We threw twigs up toward
its wanting and you laughed when it
dive bombed us, hands above your head
as if in supplication. I knew then that
I would lose you, someday gone
to the world of men and promises,
dreams opening like doorways
to light, and could picture myself
already trailing from you, unable
to take your hand: a phantom limb
reaching from one body to another
between the unreachable air.
( originally appeared in "FlatmanCROOKED's Prize Winning Anthology" )
Scars (three acts)
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
--T.S. Eliot, 'Gerontion'
i.
My first at fifteen, the silver
blade fixed in its grinning,
a decree unwinding the forearm
into a strange roadmap until
a furious broth slurried the flesh,
overran everything like a prison
break, river of amazement
drooling at its luck.
ii.
The one my daughter wears, indefensible,
her face unhinged and broken in
the syrupy indifference of summer lull,
a picnic spread atop a green field where
we no longer feel safe: no one expecting
the dog to snap its sour maw into her cheek
and neck, the owner still holding its collar
so she could hug the animal properly and
show that all she had to give was love.
iii.
And what of the ones that remain
hidden, like desire in a good man;
the ones that bear weight the way
night bears darkness between the sleeping
rhododendrons, a trail of breadcrumbs
leading back to yourself, a prescription
with endless refills and all you need
to say is yes, you are thirsty?
(originally appeared in " Poetry East " and " Terrain ")
Why We Eat Sushi
The slices of horse mackerel come
as imagined: a row of index fingers
sapped grey and useless, slabbed there
next to the pickled ginger and
wasabi sharpening its great breath
of hello. What else is there to do
but snap one down, unravel
its briny map that tells how
the dark shock of ocean it
carried on its back and rippled
through its gills is now the echo
of something you could never find
on your own, nor were ever meant to.
Even the plum and tiny eggplant
are no relief. Inflamed, you
continue, hoisting bit after bit
past the lips until your ceramic plate
seems more diminutive than possible;
until the tongue stops playing bad
cop, demanding the last piece spread
itself, expose what truth it so desperately
wanted to keep hidden from you,
and you,
and you.
( originally appeared in " Alimentum ")
