From Last Testaments
Before she walked into the river
and didn't come back,
the woman who couldn't remember
the day of the week
or the faces of her children,
made a list of all the men
she'd ever loved,
left it for her husband by the coffee pot,
his name on the bottom,
underlined twice
for emphasis.
Poem For Sigmund
It's a funny thing,
a Brontosaurus with a long neck
and pea-sized brain, only room
for one thought and that's
not extinction. It's lucky
its mouth is vertical
and not the other way
or we'd see it
smiling like a Cheshire cat.
(Hard to get into the mood
with that grin in your mind.)
No wonder I feel fond of it,
its simple trust of me
as my hands slide down your belly,
the way it jumps up
like a drawing in a child's pop-up book,
expecting me
to say "Hi!
Suprised to see you,"
expecting tenderness
fron these envious woman's hands.
So This Is Love
"The real love that follows
early delight and ignorance.
A wonderful sad dance that comes after."-Jack Gilbert
So this is love, a kind of sad dance
and who's leading? I lie in bed
without you, your side not slept in
and I don't care. It's over one more time
just like it's raining once again,
a cat dies, you get another. Call it
the same name, remember the generalities,
not the specifics of such small deaths.
It makes me smile how we said this
is different, we've never loved before,
not really loved, you know. So here I am
again, trying to work up some kind of anger,
trying to find a word that fits what I
no longer feel.
The cat we got two days ago lies on your pillow,
purrs like he's been there all his life.
Perhaps he has, it's hard to tell the difference.
The rain feels like yesterday's. long silences,
the same old tired dance.
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