My Mind

My mind: a collection
of useful disasters.

A bundle of arrows
clutched in a dead hand,
made of different woods and heads,
all fletched differently,
all facing
the same target.

A muddy stream
running swiftly
and tainted with blood.

An industrial park
full of small, unknown firms
making small parts
for war machines.

A parked bus
growing cold in the lot,
still holding one passenger
who fell asleep
long before the last stop.

A yearbook
missing one picture.

A worn lucky coin,
a worn worry stone,
a frayed string of prayer beads
lying in dirty snow
fifty paces behind the hole
in the pocket they came from.

I have owned so much
and have so little useful left,
regrettable remnants
of regretted choices.

I live in here
where loop upon loop
of the push broom’s path
cleans up nothing for good,
only makes dirt-curbed tracks
and piles that look the same
no matter where they are left,

no matter how often they’re rearranged.

Useful disasters
only in the sense that they keep me
thinking, always,
of how I might recover, reuse,
remake them to new purposes.

Fire the arrows at last,
hurdle the streams,
bankrupt the factories,
get off the bus,
show up for the photo shoot;

learn, at last, to pray.