In the mythology of certain tribes
there is a tradition of using black
to represent purity
and white to signal
corruption.

When I was a child
I had a black blanket
that I carried everywhere
and sucked upon until it turned
gray.  I was my own tribe,

dwelling somewhere between
the limits.  I smelled like pine tar
and blueberry bark all summer
and tripped over my own feet
all winter, waiting for summer

until I was thirteen and I lost a ball
by the railroad track.
A man took it with a pair of scissors,
so I started trying to play catch without it —
crouching all the time in anticipation.

It’s hard to catch anything
when you’re clinging to something else.
Was that manhood out there?
I let the friendship of that ratty cloth go
and focused as hard as I could,

and so my hands
have remained cupped
to this day,  hard molded
to the need to succeed
and be perfect —

but how I wish I still had that
ambiguous blanket,
something to wring out
and cradle as it dried,

its divergent natures cooling
on the ground, its texture
a comfort.  Black, for purity;
white, for poison;
and I am the tribe of gray.

still
as the trout

resting
on the sand

in glass water

one flip
of one fin

reveals him
to be

gone

as you are
now

under the surface
with no sun above

one word

gone

or

enough

they sound the same
at times

the first drowns out the second
at too many other times

gone

the movement was so swift
as to be nearly invisible

but

it was

enough

1.
Under the sign that says
"Personalized Hairdressing,"
the leafblower guy’s got a cigarette
hanging from his mouth
and his ear protectors
perched on his head,

and he looks like
a barfly Princess Leia
swinging his black cannon
back and forth,
wiping the winter trash
out into the gutter.

When he cuts the motor,
I can hear that he’s singing
"Seasons Of Love"
around the butt end of his smoke.

He stops as soon as he knows I can hear.

2.
Sister Rosa
lived here for eighty years
and volunteered for forty,
held the hands
of the dying when
their families couldn’t take it
anymore.

With her black hairnet
and black orthopedic shoes,
clumping along in the market,
smiling at our children, she had been
the trademark of small town care
around here,

until the day she passed and,
when asked at the penultimate moment
why she’d been so willing
to do what she’d done, to do
what was being done for her
right now by so many who had asked
to be there at her side,

she said:

"One day, far too late,
I discovered that I just liked
to watch people die."

3.
Just when you think
you know someone,
a rumor hits the wind
and you end up imagining
tornadoes sleeping
in the next room, ready to blow
your windows in on top of you.

Tough.

Suck it up like a soda pop
shared in a ’50s movie.
All those kids knew they were acting.
You don’t have to pretend anymore
that you didn’t know that.

Duty, the mare’s tail,
keeps the flies away
from the Big Warhorse’s Neck
so she can trample on merrily ahead.

Honor is a carpet bombing
bunker busting drillpointed beetle
always scuttling underfoot. 
Everyone knows he’s there,
everyone’s trying not to step on him,
he always gets stepped on and then,
watch out.

Country tries to stay out of trouble
but it’s a farm, dammit,
there’s always something needs doing.

Love flees to the city,
dreams of home,
worries about the folks she left behind.

But not enough to want
to go back.

Oh, sweetheart,
daughter,
my fresh-diapered baby
at home waiting
for me,

too young to understand the notion
of Mommy’s sudden gnawing fear,
the too-temporary heaviness
of my purse bearing
the severance check,

you’ll look up at me
when I come through the door
hours ahead of schedule
and laugh.

I’m going to get right down
on the floor with you
and roll around for a long time.

pile of dead badges
on the conference table.

pens left behind
with the company logo still visible on some,
while others have been rubbed to near illegibility
from constant use.

weary managers
going through checklists
of tools, computers, cellphones
to be returned.

the last paychecks handed over.

silence throughout the office area
as escorts return from the front door
one at a time.

outside, the sun
is weakening as the day grows old.

parking spaces go from gray to black
as the mist soaks into
what had been protected
for a little while.

Your attention please!

After much thought
I’ve decided to
start using
my real name

which is
"L’Wan"

which stands for
"Left Wing Assault Necktie"

and I will be touring immediately
with my partner
"R’Wan"
(aka  "Right Wing Assault Necktie")
as one half
of the greatest politically charged team of stealth folk assassins
on the planet

We will call ourselves
"The Accessories"
and return to our root cause
of changing the nature of your ears

with big acoustic guitars
that took years of wage slavery to acquire
and a sound system made entirely of
green tech lies

We’ll bake the bread of justice
in our shorts
and toss it to the hungry

We’ll make up a song
for every genocide
everywhere

We’ll rough up the Man
and teach him a thing or two

and make you cry for our convictions

You think I’m kidding you
about this plan
but I’m not

I’m a stealth dog
and R’Wan is a deadly cat
We’re the housepets your mother warned you about
who look all friendly and mild
then steal your breath when you’re asleep

using your acclaim to feed The Cause

Sniff us out at a theater near you
and save yourselves the trouble
of having us come into your homes

We’ll bug you
all the way to the food bank
and eat well while we’re doing it

angry little pooches
yapping at you to get real
yap yap
yap

The Accessories:
changing the world
one fashionably wrapped neck
at a time

if you want to understand
who that officious stranger
in the conference room is
with all those packets of papers

or the meaning of
the unfamiliar taut bodied man
in the usually empty cubicle
looking falsely bored
like a bouncer
just waiting for someone
to get out of line

or why all the human
resources staff
are refusing
to look you in the eye

then you should know
that it’s a special day

someone’s made a mess
and those folks are here
to help clean it up

or should I say
clean
you
out

Ceramic lamp on the walnut table —

clay never intended
to become a bearer of light,

but it did.  The tree
never intended to lend its strength
to the clay, but it does.

Once upon a time, the tree’s roots
threaded through a vein of clay
as they silently created its hold on the earth.
The clay had no reaction to that,
lying there underneath it all.

It was our violations of their different ways of being
that brought them together here,
their roles reversed now, making themselves useful
just for me.  I am quiet before them,
respectful of the changes they’ve been through
to end up here. 

What will I become next? 

I think about that,
nursing pain, imagining a path
not of my choosing, one that may take me
into service to something unimaginable now.