Kid fishing was the one thing
I had, back when I had
so little.

My awkwardness
with the girls I liked drove me
to the pond in the woods
to be alone. I’d stuff my pain
down in my rucksack with the pad
I was starting to carry everywhere
even then. I’d thread a worm onto
a snelled hook and cast out beyond
the drainpipe into the cove
and almost always bring up
a scrappy perch to be tossed back
like a bad pickup line, over and over,
all afternoon, every afternoon,
all summer long.  
I wasn’t happy
but I was less sad.

Adult fishing? Now
that’s different, softer,
less serious. I don’t go often
and when I do I mostly drink, 
cast a line now and then
for the sake of the art, never
catch a thing, and
write down stories about
what got away,
even though I’ve no idea 
of what lives here.

Still awkward?
Not so much. 
The most awkward
I feel when I fish these days 

is when
I dip into 
the so-cold-it’s-hot stream
to pull up beer and brandy
from where I stash it
in the deeper pool behind
Lion’s Head Rock, just out of
the main current, and I drop 
the bottles, sometimes
even breaking one — that’s

a bad day adult fishing,
which is still better
than a good day
doing almost anything else I can name

with the exception of kid fishing,
which I can never do again,
which (when I was a kid)
I never thought of as happy,
though it is all I can ever think of
when I’m asked for a happy memory.

Wednesday morning, 6 AM.

Long low whistle outside.
Not a bird I’ve heard before.

Open a window to clarify:
there it is, a rich trill,
tones descending,
in near distance.

In full view
fat sparrow, fence-mounted, fluffs herself.
Cat whines softly and I step aside
to let her leap up, settle, 
stare.

There’s that whistle again. Clearly
not made by this sparrow or any other.  
Something’s out there  
I don’t know —

squirrel scolds as usual, sparrow
fluffs out as usual, cat stares as usual,
I have to take out trash as usual.
It’s bagged and I’m ready

but I hesitate, fearing I might
break something 
simply by stepping into 
this.

Sometimes the only wind I can feel
is a howler churning inside me.

I lean to the left, then the right,
fall flattened to the floor.

It seems impossible
that nothing in this room

has been moved
by such a storm but it’s true.

It’s as still as a ghost
in here. Meanwhile I’m shaking, 

shattering within.  Every nerve
waving like grass, 

blood white-capped and frothing, 
so loud I can’t think,

can’t pull a single word out of my lungs,
yet you sit there and mouth the usual,

that one must suffer for art,
that this will be material

for me. All I can do
is breathe and try to lie low enough 

to let the twister pass,
and you’re saying this. Believe me

when I say I don’t want the poem
that’s in here with me, friend;

I don’t want this poem
at all.

The God says,
I am so sick of people!  

The Human responds,
I am equally sick of the God.

A sparrow, small-hopping,
picking in the mulch for food.

Leaving after a few seconds
to follow a better path.

As healthy as can be,
oblivious to the chattering.

They sell straw hats at the supermarket
and in the seasonal aisles of drugstores.

They sell surgical scrubs in the seasonal aisles of drugstores
and milk and cigarettes in the gas station mini-mart.

There’s jerky and coffee on sale in the gas station mini-mart
and guns being sold from the trunk of a Mazda on A Street.

There’s illusion on sale from a Mazda’s trunk on A Street
and salvation on a rack in the storefront Lighthouse Church next door.

The whole damn nation is a storefront.  
A merchant God compels us to commerce.

We’re outfitted for the part — half cowboy, half doctor.
Well armed, undernourished though stuffed,

jacked up and hacking, righteous,
and dressed for bathing in blood.

They sell lottery tickets everywhere
because while hope is still free and not easily found, 

it’s the only thing
some of us have left.

It’s hard to breathe
when immersed
in this scent.
It’s a man’s scent.  
A patriarch’s scent.  
The Patriarch’s scent.

So man-scented
the question must be asked:
were there any women living
wherever this paper was printed?
If there were
they aren’t present in this smell.

Maybe
they were busy
holding up that world
so a man could write this.  Maybe
they were busy dying
holding up that world 
while thinking of new ones.  

That was a hint of them
just now —  
fouled wood smoke
and a whisper,

burn them,

like the crackling of pyres.

He never got to be

a one-hit wonder
because that’s lightning’s job
and he was instead
the steady drizzle
that glooms all
and never seems
to end.

She never got to be

a regional favorite but 
unknown elsewhere
because she was busy
being unknown
right here.  

I never got to be 

the object of devotion
from a small but loyal
group of fans because
loyalty is for the worthy.

We never got to be

cult artists toiling
in obscurity because
we barely toiled. It was all
so easy.  It all came so 
easily we could not 
define work, never mind
put it in.

As many reasons 
as there are drops of blood
in the soil.  

As many reasons
as there are pieces of art
no one’s ever seen or
cared about beyond the day
they were complete.

As many 
failures and masterpieces
as there are drops of blood
in the soil
on the graves
of people no one bothers
to recall

for longer
than a brushstroke
or a single word’s hang time
in the constantly remixed air.