Nearly time to make
a serious mistake. It’s
the only way to move
forward, my teacher 
used to say. See what
happens, then choose
a way to go to recover
or move on. It’s never
about success upon
success: it’s more like
how flowers burst up,
bud, bloom, and seem
to die only to come back,
and like them I could
likely come back from
the wreckage I plan 
to be buried in soon; 
death is after all
uncomfortable,
and as fruitful
as it might prove, the risk
of not coming back 
is large enough that 
every time a mistake
presents as an opportunity, 
I hesitate before
preparing to burst, bud,
and bloom. 

What kind of bird this is
that won’t fly away when I approach?

It looks uninjured, is unafraid; in fact
I’m sure that
not long ago
I saw it land 
exactly where it sits now
on the split rock in the front yard
that protrudes from the mulch
right behind the stone wall
bordering the sidewalk.

I fill the suet cages and it watches me
the way I might watch a delivery truck
unloading bread to the grocery 
next door to work.

Maybe the wonderment here should be
about how I’m mostly a delivery truck 
lately, unloading what others need
then disappearing. I should be grateful
I am no object of fear to some being
that could, if it so desired, simply fly away.

It’s a sparrow, of course,
but there are so many
varieties of sparrow
here every day
and I still don’t know all their names
or how to speak of them upon sighting;
It seems wrong that I am still so unsure.
It seems wrong that when I turn back
to my life among people, I feel the same.

It is a shock to the spirit
that even within the comfort
of this bird’s current regard, 
I do not feel I am at home. 

Standing there in front
of a hole in a wall

No light in there
No sign to explain it

You choose to enter

You wonder if beyond
it will be
what you’ve been promised
A place where you hope
you’ll find Hope itself

As you
approach at last
a far-end light
so pinhead small
you wonder
is it visible in truth
or just in your 
long-battered
imagination

you realize
you wouldn’t know
Hope 

if they came up and caressed you from behind
if they came before you dressed in light
even if they then called you 
by your long-resisted true name

you couldn’t be certain

and after all
look over there

Another wall
Another hole
Another promise 
that darkness shall lead to light

Perhaps in there 
they might know you
by another
more pleasing name

Who are you
not to answer
Who are you 
to say no

Who are you not to have
hope for Hope
beyond this

while you are 
on this side
of the wall

soon enough
a pair of Malinois
will come into view

holding a banner between them
that will bear
an illegible word

you will squat before them
and from that vulnerable position
attempt to decipher it

as the dogs approach they shall veer
slightly to the left of where you are
and the banner will become 

impossible to read
so whatever the message the dogs have
is either not meant for you or 

you will miss it
and you shall rise
from the squatting position

look back at the place
from which the dogs came
and see only a sunset

you will tell yourself
as you veer away from the view
turning slightly to the right

this how it has been
for all your time 
messages seemingly meant for you

narrowly undelivered
from ferocious mouths
leaving you in their wake

to marvel and wonder
where to look
for an explanation

The word of the day:
“froideur.” On loan
from French, it describes

“a coolness or distance
between people.” As in
how we develop rote answers to

“how’s the family, friend?”
No one actually cares,
do they?

As in, “what’s up
for the weekend?
Got any plans?” comes to sound

like reconnaissance for assault.
You don’t respond with the truth,
which is, “I’m going to spend it either

coiled and nasty, or curled and
weepy, either way don’t come by
if you don’t want a share of the pain.”

You think I’m sick for saying this.
I think you are right.
I don’t care what you think.

I think I’m not alone.
Others don’t care what I think,
or that I’m even here.

Calling it froideur
offers hope that it is not
who we truly are.

We don’t have a word for it. 
We had to go take one
from elsewhere to speak of it.

Using one word to explain it
leaves so much more time
for silence.

Imagined body: 
pensive, fat-assed,
sweaty with compassion

for all. Real body?
Cold layers like
Damascus steel,

cold eye when turned 
toward others’ pain,
cold and round and dry-eyed.

He tells himself
he is nearly one 
to his aspiration.

He tells himself 
he loves, he is 
kind and as free

as his imagined body
imagines itself to be.
He stands in his imagined

place in the world
and tries to occupy it:
stiff, sharp, cold to the touch.

Wherever the edge was 
a decade ago, a year ago?
It’s just ahead, almost
underfoot now. 

I was born for the edge
of the edge, to hang my toes
over the great fall
to the bottom, and look down.

My friends say it’s dangerous
to be here. They are afraid
I’m still who I was a decade ago,
a year ago. No fear that I’ll jump;

they just know how much I love
the edge of the edge. Love the stage
it provides. To tumble in the last act
would be just my way, they think,

but I’m not the being
they think I am, not even the one I was
a year ago, a decade ago. I know 
if I fall into that, I’ll just float

and no one, not even my friends,
is ready to see me hovering like
the peregrine falcons on Stone Mountain
updrafts, not plunging to earth.

I know who I am now. I don’t
stumble over the edges where I find myself.
I sit there in mid air high above disasters
and catastrophe. Maybe someday. Not today,

not a decade, not a year hence.
I’m not done with the earth yet.
I’m not ready yet to fall, to fail. 
I’m too light to know how close death is. 

For the love of the wall of darkness
in the mouth of the bedroom
that is the door to the bedroom

that has been created by the light in the kitchen
that will soon be turned off leaving only
one small nightlight left on to make it easier

not to trip over the black cat if there is
(as there always is)
a need to walk from bedroom to bathroom

in the few small hours between
my late bedtime and early rising
that have become my old-age norm

I offer praise for what lies 
beyond that wall of darkness 
in the mouth of the bedroom

as I stagger with my old knees
and dead-nerve feet from bathroom
back into the bedroom

so warm and easeful
after fitting my CPAP mask 
and settling in for the few hours between

falling asleep now and then rising
into the insatiable orders 
of dawn and food and work

This is for love of the darkness
that promises a little forgetfulness 
if only I will come in and stay 

and now I realize that here is the black cat
sleeping on the bed itself 
so I needn’t have worried

I could have done all this
in darkness had I wished
without nightlight at all

It’s not far from here to there
An easy walk easily completed
if I only had had faith in my own steps

I tell myself next time to listen
for the purring in here
before I step out into dim and useless light