Connecticut

Is It Mine Again?

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Dumptruck sings “Get off
my island.” Used to be
my refrain even though
I’ve always known no one

(especially me) can really own
it. Just missed going to college
with one Dumptrucker. Shared a cab
from the Lower East Side to Prospect Heights
early one Sunday morning with another.

An oral history gets written
down. What gets lost
in translation becomes ghost
poems that only recite

themselves under waxing
crescent moons. But when they do,
you can hear them echo
up freshly rained-on empty streets
with titles like “urban spring” and “long live
the lighthouse keeper.”

DNR—Or Do

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I can almost taste
the snow—nothing
good ever comes

from that. A late March double
espresso might neutralize
the palate. Might

not. A family
reunion in August resuscitated
to honor my father. I

never went when he was
alive. How can I
go now? August is

the month of grand
gestures, spiritual releases.
August is

the month he left
us. Yes, I told him
he could let go, but

how could I know
what it would be like
to live in a world without

his heart beating
in it? August is the month
when water

falling majesty just
might return.

Day 212 (When I Am Home)

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I am New England dirt,
the taste of beets out back.
I am not brownstone—
not urban by birth. I am

still in quarry depth,
the scent of cars rusting beneath.
I am not ocher—not red
iron ore impure. I am sipping

fresh water from a claw-foot tub
turned spring, overflowing
to Bone Lake at dusk
and warm. But I am not

the moon to be collected.
I am not forty jokes memorized—
not working a room,
timing accent and plot. I am

ready to mark this laughter
the colors of a flower bed
against brick. I am the line
drawn purple—blues and reds

of a road map
preparing to fold everything
I am
(except magnetic north) in place.

Go Back to Rockville

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As soon as

we bring
your ashes east
to rest
where you began

as soon as

we hear
the bagpipes grieve
wailing beauty
against stone

as soon as

perfectly selected
hymns are sung,
prayers murmured,
eulogy declared, another
poem read

as soon as

we reach
the engraved
memory of your parents
and second sister—
the baby before you

as soon as

your ashes
are properly returned
to earth’s secure
containment

as soon as

you are
released, I will
begin again.

Move Scenario

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She’s going to write another
poem about how she almost

moved
to Georgia. And she’ll use
move

at least two more times
before finding relief

for a blistered left
thumb. This burn—an accident.

An embarrassment.
An encounter
with a flat

iron nothing like the wedge
of a building where her former

self began.
Then the move
back

to Connecticut, then the big one
to Minneapolis—not Athens.

One music town
or another
moves

ahead. A northern girl
in the end—so far.

Pillory

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“Lap and drag. Crag and gleam.
That continual work of wave
And tide, like a wet wind, blowing
The earth down to nothing.”
—Tracy K. Smith, from “Minister of Saudade” (in Duende)

When laws of motion become lairs,
it’s time to reconsider the quarry

and what it might hold. She stopped
buying bathing suits when she learned

the truth about limits. Love
lies at the bottom

of the bottomless. There she’ll be—
denying her need

for oxygen. Not a little death.
Not a death at all.

Decade of Origin

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I’m no longer
a Manhattan with rye,
the suit with one sugar cube, or
the skirt

garnished with a cherry. I’m no longer
eligible to mix
it up on the East Coast. But
visits taken black

filled to the brim
still carry me home.

Glass Plan

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To run a marathon, write
a book, publish
a poem, make
love to a woman, join
a commune, find
a home, see the world,

to call it a day
is to spin my own

epitaph on a 3 x 5
note card, index
my breath, become obsessed
with chasing my own
past, is to take
a long ride on a train.

CT

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Whatever happened to Dumptruck? What
got lost in the Portland quarry has been

recycled into Brooklyn brownstone tall
tales. I used to shout: “Get off

my island” too. Followed by the refrain:
“No one owns

the land.” Thought I was so clever
discovering her getaway

path—used to be mine. You didn’t want
to take it till it became

hers. And definitely no one owns
the water between—no matter

what anyone says. That includes you
singing or talking in your sleep.

Lysistrata Dreaming

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Not one of your death wish missions
into another war torn land. This is mine:

a summer night dream, sweaty
without covers. The things we used to do

together—drink, run, get naked
in waterfalls, have sex, smoke years later—I don’t do

anymore. A Greek island, Southern Portugal, somewhere
in the middle

of Connecticut. The unconscious doesn’t bother
with these details. Do you want me

to break my vows? You have some of your own.
You were never really free. I might break

down inside this scene if
I could see the right water

fall after dark—no Mississippi River icon,
Niagara Falls, Icelandic wonder, rain playing blues

harp on a Cape Cod cottage roof. No.
Would need to be off

a back road near no one
and nothing left at all before I wake.