Morning Poems

The Myth of Being Double-Jointed

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“To love is to be a fish.
My boat wallows in the sea.
You who are free,
rescue the dead.”
—David Ignatow (“Rescue the Dead”)

to find a secret hollow
in an open field
to be

so fermented
to listen only
to the lowest ones

to harbor and worry
memories
to wear them out

to give an imaginary friend
the silent treatment
a muse a leave of absence
a guardian angel permission
to tweet what’s seen
when you lock the door at night

to release your grip
on the balcony rail
to choose to live nowhere

near the scene
of your last kiss
with anyone not just him

to believe in
marionette strings
more than a mannequin pose

is to be
the rescuer
and the rescued

Lost & Found Summer

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I look for you
everywhere—beneath grates
and cellar doors
that open onto city sidewalks.

On the Brooklyn Bridge
pedestrian ramp
next to a woman selling
sliced mango.

In the Fulton Street subway station.
Behind that window
covered by Banksy’s (or Mr. Brainwash’s)
“Love is the Answer” Einstein.

In the Hudson, over the underpass,
inside the fermented
raspberry smoothie bottle
before it explodes.

An instant murder scene
impersonation stains
a white room
in the Lexington Hotel.

We lose an old friend
to a heart attack in July,
find each other
at his funeral after 31 years.

Maybe you didn’t want
to be found. Maybe I should be losing

myself in Grand Central
sky constellations instead.

Going Direct

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I am a tale
of two cities

ping ponging east
to north midwest
and repeat

the net getting
tangled and slack

big to minnie
no I won’t say it

pomme
there I did

Atlantic Ocean
estuarial to Mississippi

River and falls and lots of lakes
the Spuyten Duyvil
and Minnehaha creeks

four seasons
some longer than others
much longer

so cold so hot so pretty
in October

First Avenue
to the Bowery Ballroom

no more CBGB
no more Uptown Bar

no more every night
with smokes and shots

Walker Whitney
MIA MoMA Met

Central Park
Cedar Lake Trail

High Line
skyway skyway skyway

best of worst of
in a continuous loop
blurs the distinction

Loring Park
Kingsbridge the Bronx
Uptown the Upper West Side

home home
I say it twice

in two different time zones
to mark my place

Urban Paradox

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When in doubt,
when only anonymity
inside the margins
of a crowd will do.

When my heart aches
for the younger me
who lost her father
three years ago.

When I don’t trust
my capacity for keeping
a stiff upper lip
above a lower one that droops.

When I see wild turkeys on train tracks
across from the VA Hospital
and wonder if
one of them is you, Dad.

When I wonder how
to endure one more minute
without you
in this world.

Begin to think
about those other worlds.

Fear trumps peace
and I struggle to forgive

my even younger self
for all the times
she gave away her power
for the wrong reasons—any reason.

And the knot in my throat
makes it hard to swallow
the present moment,
impossible to breathe.

When I feel utterly powerless
and ready to find my strength
and competitive drive again
running up the northern hills in Central Park

because after 31 years
nowhere else
drags it out of me
so completely.

When I’ve got no place
to go
to be so alive,
I go to New York.

Proteus (Old Man of the Sea)

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“I love my free spirit.
I trust my creative power.
I generate the wind beneath my wings
and enjoy the journey.”
—Michael Nash Mantra

Since you died three years ago,
whenever I fly
I find you
in the clouds.

On this date, you have come to me
as a wave breaking
against a jetty
in Oak Bluffs,

as a young fox
darting along a beach road
on the farthest tip
of Cape Cod at dawn.

As I board another plane
bound for New York,
I wonder what form
you’ll assume this year.

Gulls don’t
get so high.

You might wait till I land.
The wrong season
for a Sandy Hook harbor seal
haul out.

No, something will soar
overhead if I can be
patient, still
as the Palisades.

Anything with wings, Dad.
Show me anything with wings.

Why

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because
Minnesota boys

the first cool night in late August
and a blanket
pulled off the shelf

because
the Mississippi
any time of day or season

because
First Avenue
with its ceiling replaced

because
winter windchill
bragging rights

the first warm day
in April
maybe it’s May maybe June

because
Loring Park
Armajani’s Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge

John Ashbery
in both directions

because
sculptures by
Noguchi Shea Serra

Lake of the Isles
Cedar Lake Trail
Minnehaha Creek

because
the C.C.

because
Minnesota boys

Why Do You Do This?

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Who will answer
this time?
Which one of me wants to tackle it
today?

I will.
I/we have no choice.
I/we say the same thing
each time asked.

Time is the ultimate
four letter word
scrawled on all the walls
of all the buildings

in all the cities
within all the worlds
we map
or make up.

The ultimate reverse
graffiti reveals
how much dirt we accumulate
within our own inventions.

Leave it to the scientists
and philosophers,
this poet (and this one and this one and)
hears an echo

split open in an alley
where a mangled chainlink fence
and rotting garbage in a dumpster
are proof enough for her

time does exist
inside this heart
where love and loss
slow dance all night

into a new day.
And it might rain.

Nobody’s Sitting in Your Chair

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I want you
to read me
all the time

even in the bath
even in your sleep

I’m so vain
I want you to want to believe
each poem is about you

they are about everyone
and no one

till the reader
enters the room
surveys the tile floor

wooden tables
plaster walls
painted cautionary yellow

chooses a chair
sits down
becomes part of the scene

an empty folding one
blocks an open window

its half-drawn shade
flaps in the breeze

She’s One

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She looks for lefthanders
near the border between

Minneapolis and Saint Paul,
between staying and leaving, between

walking and tumbling off, between
fade and fate.

She wants to find a way
to celebrate her invisible skin.

Invisible face. Invisible hair.
So invisible, she becomes

an imaginary friend
just like the one who built

mini-towns with her
in dirt and sand and gravel

on an island nobody owns.

She’s not talking
to herself; she’s just talking

to someone
who left the room

before her fingers began to stiffen
with arthritic self-awareness.

She takes selfies
in the nude. Deletes

the evidence. Thinks of you. Deletes
more evidence.

She crosses the Mississippi
on a train on a rainy August morning

looking for lefthanders—
finds a few.

In Search of the Lost Art

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“A writer is essentially a spy. . . .
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.”
—Anne Sexton (from “The Black Art”)

When we were lovers,
I didn’t know how
to wear lipstick.

When we were lovers,
we built and broke
our own code.

The Def Leppard
drummer still
used both hands.

Orwell’s novel
did not come true.
Ronald Reagan was president.

When we were lovers,
I had all the licenses
I would ever get—none.

When we were lovers,
you were thick,
I was snug.

We had no world
wide web. MTV was born.
Mark Zuckerberg, not yet.

We didn’t need replacements. Heard music
beneath stars, discovered our bodies’ perfect cadence
in a station wagon way-back.

When we were lovers,
house alarms went off
spontaneously.

When we were lovers,
eating ice cream was erotic—
didn’t give me stomach aches yet.

One bath almost shared.
One shower together
after three years of waiting.

We got locked inside a courtyard
outside a Brooklyn brownstone
and didn’t care.

When we were lovers,
a waft of ghostly smoke
occasionally hovered over the river.

When we were lovers,
we fought as intensely.
Almost.

We could reignite
as soon as one of us got off a plane
at the airport gate.

Thornton Pool had a high dive.
I belly-flopped off it.
You watched a swan glide down.

When we were lovers,
you would drive me home
at daybreak.

When we were lovers,
time stood still
but not for long enough.

When we were lovers,
we couldn’t keep our hands
off each other.

One letter got lost
for months.
Our timing was off.

Before 1950, making love
to one another could happen
through the mail without touching.

When we were lovers, we didn’t know how
three decades later we might submerge ourselves
in deep water to resuscitate the lost art.