Daily Archives: June 20, 2020

You Should Be In A Band

If you look like you should be in a band,
you should be in a band. 

You may already be in a band, or maybe
you are in camouflage, in disguise as a member

of a band. If someone asks if you’re in a band,
whether or not you are

you’d better be able to tell them
the name — 
and if they ask what you play,

you’d better say you are a vocalist —
unless you play something?

Do you play something, play well enough
to be able to comfort the eagerness of the questioner?

They’re going to ask you if there’s anything your band does
they might have heard. Shrug it off; be modest.

Be the band member you’d wished you had met at fifteen,
the one too cool to boast. Be the one who answers

all questions and maybe you give an autograph, 
a hard to read scribble on a stray napkin.  

After the encounter, get back in your car.
Write a damn song, would you? The band is depending on you.

If you aren’t in a band,
you know where to start.


Flowers Of An Unknown Species

First day of summer,
yard work, looking at
flowers of an unknown
species.  Yellow, dainty,
on long stems springing
from the abandoned bed
where we once grew
early salad — mustard
greens perhaps? I have
forgotten what was there
now; it was years ago
that we grew
more than weeds 
in those beds.
This may not
even be something
descended from what
we planted. I take one
into my mouth — bitter
as ironweed, astringent
bright on my tongue;
spit it out praying it’s just
distasteful and not
poisonous.

Back inside, out of the heat,
I turn on the television
and turn it back off again
at once. Astringent and 
dark, the visions there,
and surely poisonous
as that weed was not. 
This news growing from beds
we abandoned long ago —
was it something we planted
or an invasive species? 

A god’s voice says,
eat of this and know
the truth. I bend a knee
to the floor, hungry,
terrified, and not sure 
I’ve got the strength 
to rise.