Give me a smart time
and I’ll be all over it
like a dog on dropped steak.

I like a word that pushes back,
a phrase to turn my path
toward light.

But — one that takes me
for dumb or leaves me dumber
than I was before I read it?

Leaves me starving for honesty,
or which clearly jerks my knee
and refuses to understand why

I might take exception? I’m
not perfect. I’m often wrong,
but if you do not care to see 

how we got there,
you choose to give me
bones upon which

to break a tooth, and
understand — I do bite.
I do bite back, gnaw,

suffer myself to choose
suffering to chase off 
such chosen violence.

I will break a tooth
off in you. I will break
into pain for you. 

I’ll bleed through my ivory.
I’m not proud of the bleeding
we both will do as much as

I’m proud not to be
unwilling to leave anything
undropped under the table.

Before setting out for the day,
bathe your gut with a shot glass

full of olive oil. There is no evidence
that this makes any sense

medically, but I trust in
Mediterranean wisdom;

they live a long time there.
Every relative I knew from there

lived a long time.They loved
the sun and their gardens. 

Loved the heft of a tomato
in the hand as it came off the vine.

On a cool night, kiss your fingertips
toward heaven and say “thank you”

in whichever language you choose.
It will be understood and you will

live a long life. Every cherished person
in my life offered some gratitude

now and then for their time here.
For the taste of tomatoes in olive oil.

For a convenient, chipped glass
cleaned with care before they retired

for the night, readied for the morning.
For a belief that was not abstract. 

For sunlight in a garden warming them
as they sat at their worn table, waiting in joy

for whatever else
was to come.

New York City to Worcester,
coming home from home.
Driving as if I’m ever far from home,
always longing for home.

My eyes and brain soften all
when I’m driving past midnight.
Everything on the road
has ill-defined edges.

It feels like all I need to do
is push a little more
on the gas and I would be able
to drive right through

that 18-wheeler ahead of me.
Slide like a ghost through its length
from the back to the front.
I’d surely get home faster.

Which is what I want.
I want to get home faster.
If I drive up to the back
and try to push through, 

I’ll end up somewhere,
or maybe that place would be
nowhere. Maybe that would be
home. A new home? An old one?

Anywhere could be home,
I guess. Let me slide through
that truck ahead of me
and find out. I’ll let you know

how it turns out.

I broke my favorite cereal bowl.
Took a huge chip off the rim.

The ritual for keeping
order in the day
has been cracked
in a thoughtless way
while washing up after
breakfast.

It will nag me
like a snapped string
of prayer beads if I
do not buy another
before tomorrow;
instead of counting
to 108 tonight before bed
I’ll count to one…one…
one.  

There had better be
a bowl in gray or
one in green like the one
I had before this one.

If not, then maybe in blue?
Everything living dies,
after all.

But I fear
what I am going
to go through
if I cannot complete
the ritual as required.

The chip in the rim
may widen to swallow
the moon, 
the sun, my 
last breath.
Maybe yours too.
Maybe all of them.

I dare not leave this house
to go shopping for fear of
what could fall from the sky
so here’s to tomorrow’s cereal
eaten carefully from a chipped bowl.
Here’s to counting on what I still have.
Here’s to one…one…one.

By accident
I’ve cut myself.
Considering 
the number of knives 
in the house,
I am surprised it 
happens so seldom.

As always, I put
my freshly-opened thumb
to my lips as if to draw
the freed blood back
to its home. 

Surely it had rejoiced
at first touch of open air,
and I resented that joy.
What warm life, released
from its prison, would not
feel such release?
But to my mind
it belongs in the dark,
in my darkness.
I cannot let it go
so I suck it back in.
It may die on my lips, as so much
of what I’ve let go
has; nonetheless
I need it more
than it needs 
to be free.

I bind the wound
out of habit. I wash the knife 
out of fear of discovery.
I write this all down
out of fear of thinking more
about all this, and in the end
I put the knife back within easy reach,
back where it belongs.

Woke up
on fire
from some fiery
head-noise.

Outside high wind
and are those
crackling sounds at 
foot of bed?

This is how my mind says
blaze, boy; bad boy;
get up smoldering, flare
with penance before punishment

alone in darkness with your
history; only freed up enough
to feel an all over diabolical
regret that scratching can’t help.

Later this morning when
I’ll be crossing town 
to get on the highway north 
to work, there will be

sunrise to my right
and windows 
in downtown buildings
gone red to my left.

I thought sunrise
was supposed
to make my city look lovely
or some similar expected way

but I know I will be thinking
of nothing but unholy fire
I lived through last night,
heart and brain scorched 

open; I understand I will
never heal at all. I know the song
by heart: Bad boy, blaze boy; 
this is where you live now.

Flatbed trailer
beside me in traffic.
Full load of wreckage
including one smashed up
white Accord with glass
gone from every frame…

look, I know it’s some reflection
or my fatigue but it’s looking
like Jesus is up there
behind that cracked wheel,
smiling and waving
and looking
David Bowie fine.

It’s been
a long workday,
a long home commute.
I’m sundown run down
and ready to fall down
on the couch
and just be lonely
and trust me — 
no Jesus will raise me
once I’m down
like a pancaked car
and safe in the living room’s
everlasting arms.

I’ve been told
I could make this place beautiful
by poets and 
realtors and
rarely by lovers
but I have always thought
that’s too much to ask and
the wrong kind of work to demand
of someone like me. 

It would take
a lifetime of bone sacrifice
and blood-bathing
for me to get this place
past acceptable. 

I could make this place tolerable; perhaps
with an act of God or two
could clear away everything else
so comparison becomes impossible.

If I ever find myself 
in a land without mirrors
or morals I might fall into
some default called 
until something better
comes along
but until the improbable happens
this place won’t be made beautiful.

The realtors and the lovers
and most of all the poets
will have to make do
with this: that I will make the place
less wretched than it was
when I found it, and then others
will have to take it, leave it,
or do their part to make of it
whatever they can.