First,
you go to the window
closest to the street
and open it
wide. Then you turn the radio
up, way up. Soundtrack
suddenly expands to
an acoustic guitar; simple,
resonant as last night.
There are
birds out in the trees
of indistinct species
who fall to silence for a
moment. You assume
they are listening. When
they resume — single
sharp notes, clipped
off at the end —
you know they aren’t.
They don’t care at all
as long as you stay inside,
and you do for now. You flop
into a faded armchair
to wonder at how you used to be
when you faced the world
entirely whole. Do you
prefer this quiet
before death, before breakfast
even, or are you just
tired of sameness now
as you sit, like you did
the day before and the day before,
back to the day you lost yourself
to a pounding in your head
and the word “stroke?”
You don’t remember that day
at all, you try to recall it
and you don’t even know
if there were birds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Did you wonder much
about this when you were younger —
did you think hard about
where you would live and how
air would come to feel on your face
in your final moment?

If you are like me, you did not.
You worried about small things,
but never about
what might remain constant
and consistent in those misty days
when this past would fade.

Still, there must have been one day
when you sat under a maple
in you side yard, maybe
at sunset or under
a long shadow of your house;
four of you together or you alone
and immediate needs
slipped off your skin

until you were alone with
a future you, alone
or together
with different people,

and there were thoughts
and feelings and a hunger
and a thirst, a vague longing
you could not articulate —

did you long for it? Did you
wonder about whether anything
like this would happen to you?

It happens now, everything
in a rush, your tongue pressing
your teeth, your skin alive
with a sense of living, of dying,
one second of breath between
that moment and its recognition
as completion of your time
here and whether you are alone
or with friends or even
in a crowd of strangers

you will think back and say
oh…oh…

to yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Cat is asleep in the spare room.
Today is perfect, hot,
bright, and boring as hell.
I am tired still, five hours
awake, fed lightly, no drinks,
tired — did I say that? Yes,
I said that —

do I repeat myself? Yes,
apparently so.

Cat stretches
and spins, goes back to sleep
in the same spot she has been in
all morning, spins around to be
exactly the same as she has been

and the day is hot, bright, boring
as hell, hotter than hell too;

I am ready to sleep in the same place
I was in before I rose — did I do that?
Yes, apparently so. I can’t help
where I sleep, where I slept.

Cat keeps on sleeping as she has been
since before I got up five hours ago

and this day feels like all the others
except I’m aware of it and of my blood
on the pillow — just a small spot,
minute even, from the smaller wound
on my face where I scratched it
unconsciously in sleep. Cat

is still asleep ten minutes later
and this day is still hot and bright
and I’m aware of my bleeding
now being over, until the next time,
the next time I bleed apparently,

with the cat sound asleep and the day
not hotter — cooler even.

I’m not sure how I will ever
get to sleep again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Wind, gale force
but tiny, lasting
less than a minute,

three seconds at most,
raising alarm for
just that long.

Three people
— a poet, a television star,
a rock star enfeebled

by age and illness —
die and make the news
unlike thousands,

ten thousand others,
who die unnoticed
except for the people

who know them.
It always comes
in threes —

three seconds of wind,
three seconds of notable dying,
three seconds of seeing and feeling

what is happening,
at least for me. It always
comes in threes:

things I notice.
I hold my breath waiting
for more, every time.

They happen, of course.
Thousands
of things happen.

I shake myself free
of wind, of deaths,
of counting.

In three seconds
there will be more.
Four, five…many more;

I fall into it,
close my eyes,
wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

All day long
the wind still blows
all over the sky,
and I am powerless
to change things like that —

try to change the sky,
I say; I dare you. Try to make
the rain shift

and you and I will both
get wet, both of us
ending up soaked
to the skin under our
clothes.

The rain doesn’t care,
so why should I? Let it

fall, let it pour like
cold coffee,
let it drop its astringent
mercy on the impatient
folly of the folks below

like me, like you;
let it wash away any hope
left to us to think about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

A poem or a footprint —
ground beneath either one
shakes and forms around its edge,
its rim of influence.

What if it’s
a bad poem? What if it is
a toxic print, made by someone
who had evil intent?

No matter — a bad poem
will erase itself, lifting itself
as if it had been made
on one of those magic erase boards —

raise the clear skin,
it vanishes.

No matter — a poisoned print
will wear down, become
one with clean earth —
any trace of it will disappear.

As will I,
one day. Perhaps soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

I ate the last of the strawberries
from a red bowl in the refrigerator.

Couldn’t have been more than
four teaspoons; unsweetened,

lumpy from improper processing
but still perfectly good, even without sugar.

I don’t remember doing this. I know
I did it — the evidence is there,

or rather is not there; it’s hard to recall this
action or string of actions. I don’t recall

the taste, just the record of tasting.
I don’t recall the washing of the bowl,

but it is back in the cupboard and clean
so I must have done so, though I have

no memory, not even a fragment.
It is like this now:

a moment is taken before an act;
blank time fills in the spaces;

I recall none of it, just
the clouds before the time,

and even that is uneven, irregular,
full of nothing. All I know

is that I ate the strawberries from the bowl
and washed the bowl after I was done

and it happened sometime in the morning
after something horrendous happened elsewhere

and I was part of neither occurrence,
was just present here and my memory

has let them both go. I’ll have to read
the news for the latter, if I choose to;

I will never recall the former even if
I try. I do try and try. And then I let it go.

But the bowl was red, I think.
The berries were red as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T

Sitting very quietly at home
with reams of paper, with
insurance policies and
retirement requirements,
examining and judging
all the cheery pictures
of older folks looking happy
and serene with their choices.

I am also sitting
very quietly at home
in pain but not in pain, sad but
not sad, confused beyond it all
with a jumble of thought
in my surfeit of damaged brain.

All the time
the bushes out front
sit not as quietly
brushing against the windows
while a mockingbird across the road
tells her story over and over
like a mystery I need
to solve on this stunning day.

My eyes close, stroke-shuttered
and weary as the country,
demanding more from this land
than I have borne.

I am finally old and
realize
there’s something
in the voice of a bird
that I must listen to
from my own silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T