On Faith
A sudden want of it this morning,
preceding coffee, shoulders
to stretch my right arm over.
It disturbs me.
Artificial coloring disturbs me. Rattle of heating pipes
straining to keep me content disturbs me. Baby talk
disturbs me. Pharmaceutical advertising ending with lists
of fatal side effects disturbs me. What constitutes
purity or filth or proper or not disturbs me. Who
gets to draw those lines disturbs me. Web cookie
disturbs me. The compulsion to always end
on an image disturbs me. Sugar disturbs me.
The never-ending suggestion
of irrevocability disturbs me. So, too,
this want of faith.
Detached from spires, mammoth bodies of religion,
the church bells down the block that inform me
it is time to cook some dinner. A want of words.
A want of worlds.
A want of impossibility. A want of moths
molded from light, landing on me,
choosing to land on me.
My Teacher Once Asked About My Fear
And I said: Forgetting things.
A friend offered his couch
in Myrtle Beach. There is cable TV
for basketball games, though it’s still March
and the jacuzzi hasn’t opened. He’s the waiter
at a run-down diner owned by his Armenian cousin,
who pours me plenty of bourbon. We go home
swaying, eat Walmart cheesecakes by hand,
and if we are still empty, make stir-fry
out of salami shreds and broccoli.
Forgetting things, the trick is doing it before
anything really happens. Are you still there
my curious teacher? I have a new fear
and he’s called forever.
No Time Stands Alone II
I once tiptoed into Mother’s bedroom her violet curtains drawn
her lonesome contour in sheets asking her my lovely mother
can you please call me princess? Four year old boy
no skirts no luscious hair no Disney crown and still she let me
be princess that morning blanket around my shoulders
like exotic fur. There was no need for understanding
no need to explain why a boy needs to feel pretty
no purging for poison in the media in that bedroom
she hugged me loved me this boy who should really be a gun.
In that meadow couples made out in shadows I once tried befriending
a doe red apple in my palm that sugary heart oh how I yearned to learn
an elegance unfeigned. Holding out to her the fruit my sincerity
all unbearable and within across geraniums waiting for her
to love me back. All I got was a shred of eye contact
and she’s gone leaping into the depths of beauty seeing
in my pupils the barrel of a hunter’s rifle thirsting
to own her to consume her motion. A man all grown
not a boy I once longed to be just to now wishing to be an orchid
when everyone expects a weapon a wasp a father
like a whiplash. A consequence comes with wanting
in this world. I spend each day studying the art
of being an aftermath.