Want to become an animal
but don’t want to spend a lot of money

Want to armor my back and thighs
like a dragon might be so armored
but do it on a budget
and not permanently

Want to sing in the morning
and charm somebody’s pants right off
like some warbler or finch (I can’t name birds
on sight but I like the sound of those names)
but I can’t afford the singing lessons
and I’m not made for flight

Instead of being a man
who has to take everything so seriously
ravenous yet considerate of all consequences
to the seventh generation
careful of feelings today

Want instead to be an animal
but gently, as if
animal were a costume
to be put on and off
Release my familiar
to the end of its leash
and no farther

Being a man is so antique

anything worth doing can be set on fire

there are entire scenic drives that might be improved / with a match

that looks like a bridge / burn it
it might be a sand castle / burn it / how? / use plenty of fuel
it might be fireproof / burn it / mock it until it kindles
it might be invincible / flatter it / see it burn from within

say, is that narrative / or lyric /  surreal / photoreal / protest / pratfall / love?

if it will burn / it is all of those / and it will burn
see the edges already curling?

for the burn / you should swallow a candle
for the burn / you may thread sparklers in your eyebrows

for the burn / fall into the firepit as the licking heat strains for you
why make it so hard to be consumed?

burn it and yourself
ash is a truth / all things end

immortality is relative to the height of the fire / to the strength of the fire / to the sturdiness of the fuel

1.
Rocked back on my heels
by the impact
of a dark wet morning
full of challenging songs
and knotted thoughts:

do I remember
how to use the word
“contentment”
in a sentence?

The only thing I’m sure of
is that it has nothing in common with
“swagger.”  Swagger’s
how you get by
when you aren’t sure,

and I’m sure.

2.
During World War II,
there was a fad among US Army junior officers
for the carrying of swagger sticks:
short batons tucked under the arm
as a symbol of power and command.  Lieutenants
and captains competed with them;
they were elaborate, carved from ebony,
chased in gold and silver…

A general saw this trend
and issued the following order:

“Regarding the use of swagger sticks:
if you need one,
carry one.”

They disappeared overnight.

3.
I step into the rain
with a bowed head
and a slow walk.
My knee’s offering
a forecast for the day:
you’re not going to get
where you’re going
as fast as you want,
but you’ll get there.

How the rain always falls
is straight down.  Falls
from on high and ends up
soaking away into the ground,

where it will do its best work.

I don’t need to swagger
and curve my steps
to the swaying of my ego.

Swagger’s for the uncertain.
I’m

not.

What do you say
to the arm you lost
when it comes crawling back?

Go on, look behind you.  It’s sneaking
up on you, one finger length at a time.

Do you sniff back shamed tears
while looking into your former palm? 
Do you ask why it took so long for the arm
to return?  Do you not inquire
too closely, and simply embrace it
with its former partner and your replacement
machine? 

You’d better start thinking of your answers:
a real man knows how to bluff his past
when it comes back demanding its place
in his world.  You know better than to say,
“I got used to living without you
and got myself a better hold on things
without you.”  You know better
than to brazen it out with the prosthetic
hanging on your shoulder. 
You ought to know better than to break it
like that, after it’s come so far
seeking a home.  Show it a little love:

at the least,
cry a little into its open hand
and pretend you miss it.

His memory is all in the nose.

Frankincense and bitter herbs
in a censer. 

Fumblings
in the rectory.

Passing the church,
lifts off the gas
for a second.  Then
guns it, foot down
almost through the floor.
Rolls up the window.

He won’t hold his nose
to genuflect. 
Still stinks here;
reeks of blood,
of
copper and iron
like a mine, a tunnel,
a cave-in.

enrollment in this school
is involuntary

hours: after sunset
to before trash picking dawn

test question:
always answer no first then yes

graduation: tell me what’s open
this late

which car windows
yield

which back doors swing in
silently

which crawl spaces are accessible
without tearing latticework

a sad education
sleeping safe will not teach you

but you’ll know
this city

This late snowfall
an afterthought,
though the calendar
still insists otherwise.
Inside me now a refusal
to clear the walk
knowing the temperature
will rise tomorrow.
Is this hope?  Been
so long, I’m uncertain.
It may be instead
surrender, white flag
waved in the white face
of more on top of so much.
Story of my life,
lately, this unwillingness
to negotiate with
relentless
and impersonal events;
I don’t want anything
to happen —
at least, nothing
this cold.

whose graves we choose
to fantasize
the tarantelle upon

is less relevant
than knowing we all
have the deep longing
to dance there

polarity’s
the public target
of disgust
but honestly?
we all love to sin
that light fantastic
we can’t seem to sit still
red, blue
left, right

love that happy dance

how soft the ground
and yielding
how haughty our heels

how good it feels
to be swinging
above them
and they can’t do a thing
about it

the beautiful American word
revenge
is a toe dance of righteousness

everyone’s tapping
some on top
some waiting their turn

but every bastard one of us
wants to dance that dance

It has, it has been
Long Time. Taffy
hours, sweet, rotten
on teeth. 

Has been,
I.  Distinct in
non-sequential
being, my days random keys
not fitting any of a row of
locks. 

Do you crave sense?
Here’s scent, my own
unwashed.  Here’s sight,
hair cropped to mess.
Sound?  Whine
of martyr’s arrows.  Taste?
Regard the taffy hours
and their damage. And
under the fingers,
the lazy stubble.

Has been time
and time again.  Staring
into it, at me.  I,
respect abated in
seconds upon
reflecting.  I,
upstart once, deal
of the week now,
bargain.

Sweet rotten mouth.
Stink of not doing, of being
still. 

Lift every voice, birds
who magnify loss
at each dawn.  Allowing for
natural cessation, slow rundown
of the body, it can’t be long.
Has been long time already.

How much more?
I can’t chew, talk,
anything.  Sit and
slip.  Sit.  Long
Time pulling away
from my bite on it.

I’m never ready for my close-up

that shot that approaches
steadily

moving over the breakfast table
the orange scone decimated on the plate
the coffee pooling around the cheap mug
then ending gently but firmly
in a tight wrap upon my face
full of dark and light patches
and tiny bone-tone flakes
wherever I’ve dried out a bit

Not ready
any morning
for you to see me
so carefully

yet
you do

I endure it

because it happens
so often
and I still can’t believe that

In the greenspring dark,
your foot finds a rock upon which
to trip as the neighbor’s girl

skips on the far sidewalk.
Lying hurt on your belly,
you can’t

get yourself up to go back in.
So you stay.  You stay while the grass
under the moon swallows you.

Her mother calls her in for the night.
Ah well, it’s warm out here. Alone
under the moon in the grass.

There’s a fence, and something moves
along it at the groundline.  Possum,
skunk, no scent carries to you

so something else perhaps.  It stays away.
Maybe it smells you — a stink
of draining health?  It’s cold under

the moon.  You’re on your belly
and hurt.  It’s fine.  Under the greenspring
dark, it’s not hard to consider

ending here among animals
who will eventually draw near
even as the neighbors drift away,

even as you drift away.  By day
it’ll be so easy for them to see you there
on your belly, your last thought

a memory
of a skipping child
and the lowering greenspring dark.

In your house
that’s burning down
a little more every day,
there’s an armored bird

nesting in the couch
you can’t leave.
A war bird, tearing
at you, making you tired.

You can’t distinguish
the days of the week.
It would be so lovely
to sleep well and wake up better.

To lie down and sleep
with the armored bird
is to know you’ll awaken
with cuts.

You don’t even know her name
yet you lie there
and imagine you’ll learn something
from her.

She flies in her sleep, you know;
all night you’ll be scratched
and scraped with the tips
of her steel wings.

When you go to the window
in the morning, the sun
will strike and illuminate
each small wound.

It will be as if
your skin’s become Braille;
lovely reliefs that mean nothing
to the eye, that can only be understood

by touch.  You are longing
to be read, and this is why
you lay with that armored bird
in the first place;

it’s the only way
to make use of her —
let her write upon you
something for another.

Two keys on a rusty ring.
On one key
there is a label:  “Front Door.”
I assume the unlabeled one
is the back door. 

The key labeled “Front Door”
unlocks the back door
as well.  The unlabeled key
unlocks nothing at all
I can find.

I hang the useless key
on a leather thong around my neck,
cold there for a moment
until my skin warms it enough
for me to forget it’s there.

What to do now —

shall I spend the entire day
worrying that the missing label fell off
or the other was misapplied,
thinking about a door I must have missed,
or hovering in the open doorways,
awaiting the imminent arrival
of spring?