This Poem Contains Brief Nudity and Mild Violence
The old story is at least half-crazed.
Shadows
of shadows, flicker
of firelight on slick cave walls.
Two cowboys meet at a wooden bridge.
They have lean, hard faces and have ridden
a long way. Desert
sparkles in their empty eyes.
One is Anubis, jackal-headed
god, the other Ra, old as sun.
The air around their bodies
lingers, shiny and cold, their breath blurs
to white fog beneath a giant globe of moon.
On Ra’s black shirt, someone has stitched
the evil eye. Spurs
jingle, boots crunch in hard
packed snow.
Violence trails in the air like smoke.
In dark river, naked fish smell
fear and blood. Lovely voices echo
in a honeycomb of caves. Coral
dust sprinkles rocky
shore. Bound
to the mast, a king has forgotten
his name.
For seven years he has lived
as a beggar in strange lands.
His queen has mourned him for dead
and moved on. His winged boat, sailing
over sea of tears,
has passed the gate to her kingdom.
Her marble tombs will shudder
and bring forth what she cannot name.
She has taken a lover from the sacred ranks
of gods, a beautiful youth with hands
of silk and face of hawk dying in love.
All night he spits poison in the ribs of wind.
Across Fifth Avenue My Father Sings
Across Fifth Avenue my father
strides toward the park out across
southbound traffic December
gray swirl of bus exhaust rising
to wool-gray sky. Ducking cabs
he sings, “I wanna girl just like
the girl that married dear old
daaad!” and just like that we
are soaring across the rainbow
bridge and his green eyes are filled
with tears and loose skin hangs
from his neck and his battered
fedora has sailed off behind us
into the dark ravine.
Ravens whisper our names.
“The dinner wasn’t good
at all,” he lets me know,
shouts, “This is the last time
I let you choose the restaurant!”
I’ve never known him so adamant
about food, so disappointed in soft
crusts of butter chilled to little pats
of stone. “You’re gonna need
me some of these days,” he sings.
Looking at his gray-creased
slacks, I realize I have never
seen him wearing jeans, or noticed
how his soft white hair could bend
the doorway of wind. He holds me
in his wrinkled hands, but it’s hard
to stand and I slip three times before
the lights come on. I read his future
in the black and red grit of his wine.
