With one last favorite potion 
downed in a gulp, he’s out.
There will be
nothing more to say
about him today.

When he awakes he will 
be, or will claim to be, “a new man.”
Fresh page, clean start,
new leaf turned.  There’s
a theory for your consideration —

that anyone of that age
as dark and crusty as he is
could be new in any way
after one hard brown drink
and one hard night’s sleep. 

But his eyes are wide open now, he says,
he’s apologizing for all he’s worth,
for last night, for yesterday,
for every day before this morning.
His face is bright, his voice is sad.

You still bear his bruises, but they are fading.
He has been asleep for a very long time
and is awake, contrite, seems ready to be better.
It’s not like you can’t go along with this, hoping
against history. You can, certainly.

“After all is said and done, much more
is said than done.” Your mother
used to say that, often.  
Not sure where she got it
except through experience.

He says his eyes 
are wide open now.  He says
baby, please, I’m sorry, I’ll never, 
I’m a changed man. It’s all been said.
It’s all been done.  It’s done. Done.

Whenever I say
“finally,”
or
“glad that’s over,”

I know myself
to be a liar, somehow;
nothing has ever been
over, “finally” 
has never been true.

I live in a circle
with childhood
biting my tail always,
with yesterday seeking
to tear at my belly.

I ought to learn to nod
at apparent closure
more subtly
and never
commit a word to it.
I ought to know
by now
the only true way
it’s going to end
is by it all ending at once.

Compulsively
telling people about
a death in the family
about which I feel little,
it dawns upon me
that we somehow
miss village life,

even those of us
who were born and grew up
in the Megalopolis;
behind our need to reach
for the keyboard or touchscreen
and proclaim everything

is the stark truth
that in our bones
we miss
and strive to replace
the Town Crier
we have never had.

A sudden sense of 
the breadth of night.

A scale
vast enough
to take its true measure
would encompass
all the possible
that is possible.

I have seen this 
before. I swear
my eyes held it
forever when I was 
two, when I was three,
before I was schooled away
from belief, vagaries,
and wonder.

Now
I don’t know
what to call it.
Then
it did not need to be called,

it simply was there,
and I was small before it,
and had no voice, and was
consumed, and content.

As kids our noses bled on winter’s dry indoor heat
and then ran with snot in the overpowering cold.
As teens, we couldn’t find a good place for our hands.
They flapped in public; in private we stuck them
into our pants until we were caught and shamed
for that too.  As adults we hold our tongues and minds
tightly, feeling free to loose them only when we lose them.
There’s a prohibition against us being ourselves
in every place we are.  No wonder we’re sneaky
with our bodies, knowing that too many disappear
completely into the folds of this smothering world.

sharp toothed cold
biting into your lungs
when you step outside
on the way to the funeral
of your last remaining uncle

who you hadn’t seen in years
who once gave you a trumpet
you did not ever play
not even once

whatever happened to it
is it at the bottom of some closet
some river
some trash heap
did you sell it
in a moment of need or frustration
over how much space it took
in a corner of your room
after having trucked it around with you
for a long time swearing
one day you’d learn to play

you know he always liked you
you suspect you were a favorite
you used to shovel his walk
after winter storms
the hair freezing in your nose
sometimes so cold it hurt to breathe
he always had hot chocolate after
played glenn miller while you drank
and fidgeted

where is the trumpet now
that your uncle used to play 
where is the shovel now
you used to use for him
where did your uncle used to play
was he any good
what bands was he in
or did he just play solos in his basement
when no one was there to hear
who was your uncle
who’s going to be your uncle now
or ever again
in this sharp tooth everyday cold
that never seems to lift

I broke the chain
which held my medal of 
my patron, Ganesha,
lord of learning, letters, 
success, of taking it all in —
I broke that chain.  

Now I’m lying here, turning blue;
I have worked hard to earn that hue.
I’ve become a fat
gap-toothed man like him.
I don’t need to carry myself
everywhere, and no one
would mistake me for him
but still, I took heed of concerns
for over-identifying with him,
and broke that chain.

When they find me, when they
rescue me, surrounded by books
and past due notices,
the last thing they’ll think of
as they trundle me off for repair
is Ganesha.  I’ve broken that chain

and if at the hospital they ask me
what spiritual path I follow, I will tell them
nothing at all.  If they can’t tell it by looking
at me (gap toothed, blue skinned, long nosed,
fat necked and full of useless books)
then it’s nothing they should know.  I broke that chain
anyway, like an elephant gone rogue.
They ought to do me like that,
and shoot me.

While dining with assorted friends
and near friends
at a private dinner party,
Professor Alternate Jones,
“Al” for short,
announces to those of us
by nature or profession inclined
to listen to such things
that “upon reflection
on the things of this world,
the only right, righteous thing to do
is for me to spit, hard and often;
the taste otherwise is too rich
and I am so easily overwhelmed.”

Several at the table laughed
and offered similar cavalier thoughts,

but I stood up and sought and found
the view over the salt marsh, looked out
at a marsh hawk hovering, so still
over the tips of the yellow
shore grasses; saw it

taking everything in,
waiting for prey, waiting for
a sign of weakness, a flash
of motion arrested just long enough
for it to drop and rise
fulfilled, with a victory
in its talons.

I turned from the window
back to my friends and near friends,
back to the learned professor still talking,
my mouth drying up as I did so,
feeling the sharps so strongly
I had nothing to say.