Afternoon Poems

Salvages

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First Definition: Compensation paid for saving a ship or its cargo from the perils of the sea, or for the lives and property rescued in a wreck.  

I promised my younger self
(or is it my younger self
who promised me) I would forget 

you. I would not record
the scent of your hair
close shaven on your neck and scalp. 

I would not try to score
the boom of your voice
into my soundtrack loop for sleeping. 

I would not wait
for you on the pier
where everyone waits 

for their next drink,
or receipt for the next purchase
in any of those too numerous chain boutiques. 

I promised everyone but myself (at any age)
I would never speak your name out loud, or whisper it
into the hollows 

of trees or dead
birds’ eyes. I keep
my mouth shut. But I can’t resist 

what I see
on the sidewalk—never to know how the black
bird ended up in that position. Into its mystery, I press 

the harsh consonant and arrogant single
syllable of your name—let it stick, let it stick.

North Clark Street

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An old fireplace mantle painted emergency
orange. Maps folded wrong
on purpose into paper 

airplanes—a fleet of them landed
between the stems
of a candelabra. One green leaf 

on a plate on a wooden floor beside a floor
lamp. Clouds stenciled on the ceiling. A tiny red 

TV from the late 60s on the mantle
painted emergency
orange. And repeat.

Across the City

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To E.B. White

Rain on Park Avenue
South, I walk the boulevard
strip looking for a break.
Let me in, let me cross,
let me be 

in New York strolling without
longing for a face
I’ve never seen. Umbrellas
collide into one another
over sidewalks washed off 

as an Impressionist painting blurry
as the view I had
before glasses, before
knew there was no cure
for this thirst.  Let me in,
let me cross, let me be 

here—this city, here is
New York, compressing,
stressing, confessing to
all life this small island still.

She Never Loved the Doctor

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More rain and seldom
seen plastic artifacts
possess another route
she takes in laughter—listening 

to Dylan does it
every time. If
she had more energy,
she would find the source 

of all tears.  A crystal
lake miles north, surrounded
by willows and a promise
weather dutifully keeps. 

She almost wishes it would
just do it—just snow. 

(Do I mention the leopard
skin pill box hat here? Or not.)

Uptown November First

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This room is for music,
that one for shouting
on the fall down.
That’s how I remember it,
how I tried to keep it
straight. But when I got blurry, 

I may have released
my vocal chords wrong—a coloring
outside the lines. A tiny bird darts in
and out 

of the retro deco
signage above the south-facing front 

door. It’s locked. No more
food. One more night
of music in this room,
shouting in that. Tomorrow
the construction site wrapped thick
with plastic rattling 

a gentle November death
breath will swallow it
whole. And that’s that.

What Wants to Be Found

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Not marble, shale, leftover concrete, pieces of a letter
her grandmother wrote the summer before she died. 

An article on the history of Saint Anthony Falls, milling along
the mighty river, grain refined into flour, torn photos revealing explosions 

about to happen between two people unraveling
their love. A chapter from a science textbook on estuaries, 

salt granules strewn across a diner booth table. A slice of ruby 

nagahyde laying on the pavement beside an oversized dumpster,
the blood stain spreading across fertile ground. She places everything side by side, 

doesn’t use a blender. Her thinking is as collaged as a map
of her love life before the end of the cold war—overlaps 

exposed, tale ends hidden, holes carved into the ice, she might go diving
into the river before it thaws all the way through. The need 

to be found has become so acute.

Loners Club

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Each time I break
this silence to join
a conversation, I have to start 

at the beginning
again to learn
what I’ve missed since the last 

time I was human.

Conference Runaway

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A gloat and a gleam
you can’t see through
an old phone mouth 

piece. Our imagination collective
could be oval shaped
and who would know. Come 

sit beside me in this
potted plant meltdown
we’ve created without 

the use of virtual
eyes or ears. Our strut
could be next up.

Aroma Therapy

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“There’s the present moment fraught with tangled woods.”
—Jack Kerouac, from Big Sur 

The doctor who’s not really
a doctor
yet asks her to find her 

safe place with eyes closed, to lie
on her back, see
nothing but that brown orange 

noise of inner eye
lids till it comes 

into focus—the edge 

of a field blurred into a pine forest so ripe
with needle
bed mint sweetness. 

All kisses before it got so complicated 

and the sun peeking through just
to wave hello 

and see you later when you get up
from your daydream—
I mean hers. 

It was her death to be 

so awake before all of you without
a cleared path
to escape along. It is about 

feet first, it turns out.