December on the 2 Train
like twin seashells
they are twisted,
arched in, legs crossed,
bundled in creased puffers.
like quicksand,
their skin sinks in
between their eyebrows,
and lashes skate the lower lids.
slouched with turtle’s grace,
like women who have calls to take, lives to make,
but still shiver
on the train.
the daughter’s face is reflected in
steel with unusual clarity
(the twist, the puffer, the crease),
creating a third woman, and perhaps more after.
x
Grisly Work
The artiste, with a trembling hand,
Drowns pencil-shapes in paint,
Twitching at the loss of that rough-draft promise.
Once finished, she isn’t quite—
Is that orange too yellow?
Is that line too sharp?
She trims and blots and razes until
A simple sunset becomes an entirely different
Beast. Just as a chicken goes from corpse
To table-topper under the blunt gutting of a butcher
On a chopping bench. Once the head and legs are lost,
This expert refines, refines, and refines.
The once-living thing is carved elegantly and fragmented
Until it looks never-lived, unrecognizable,
Something that can be consumed safely.
And the painter returns again, and again,
Scratching, honing, bleeding red suns—
And trying not to cut out the heart in the process.
Airplane Ride
Finally see the cloud-sheath from the opposite side,
The downy white so naked, so immaculate,
Like the behind-side of a penguin’s skin.
The clean blue stretches infinitely up and
Down and sideways; remember, our souls were
Stored here before us.
Try to feel the hundreds and thousands of feet,
The celestial touch of the weightless clouds,
The definitive fear of falling,
The impossible bigness. Like
Touching your ankles or toes,
Pinching with your fingers a singular blade
Of grass by a highway, having your head
Kissed by your grandmother’s mother.
Try to grasp it, that unsticky
Enigma, that intense self-awareness. But
It isn’t possible to hold (for long) the entire
Earth in the palm of the hand.