- Apr 22, 2024
Updated: Apr 29, 2024
Clearing the Air
He’s drifting out of the woods, head bowed,Â
right arm raised and waving slowly,Â
the way someone in church reaches God.Â
About my age, he’s dressed as I am—cargo shorts,Â
t-shirt, low rise hikers—a version of me approaching me,Â
and I’m touched to witness his communion,Â
the summer foliage an eternity of tunnels and arches,Â
the sun-mottled trails scrolling through treesÂ
like illuminated script.Â
As we near each other, he smiles a little sheepishly.  Â
Lowers his arm and says, Don’t worry, I’ve cleared  Â
the air for you. Now I see he wasn’t praying
but shielding his face from webs. On his sleeveÂ
an orb weaver scrambles toward his neck. I don’tÂ
tell him. I feel wronged somehow. Not that I careÂ
about the webs or spiders. They’ll be backÂ
tomorrow, but floating from the woods that way,Â
head down, arm up—I wanted a seeker returningÂ
from wandering, answer in hand. Then a branchÂ
snapped me back to me in the woods with the dogÂ
as I am every morning, thinking to-do’s, mindingÂ
the poison ivy, urging the dog to his business.Â
No epiphany in sight, no holy whispers in the canopy.Â
Yet I keep yearning for them, and alreadyÂ
I’m envisioning tonight—spiders stringing the treesÂ
not with sticky traps, but with an array
of harp-like instruments tuned by wind and dew.Â
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Bus Real
The best time of our time in Madrid, love,Â
was not the Prado, the Palace, the Plaza Mayor,
not the Reina Sophia, the Rastro, Retiro Park—
but the night we decided to ride the busÂ
through every corner of the city, the lively and bright
as well as the shadowy and still, the people
boarding and leaving in a gush and clamor—
families fumbling down the aisle, young couples
with their mouths all over each other, old women in blackÂ
with fans, old men in black with bags, all the dark-haired,Â
dark-eyed Madrilenos who siesta by dayÂ
and take the bus at night to street cafes for olives and tapas,
Real Madrid’s stadium brilliant in the distance.
Remember how we moved forward whenever
seats opened up until we were eye level with the back
of the driver’s head, staring at the corkscrews of hairÂ
on his collar as if they were another attraction?
When the bus stopped at a corner where no one was waitingÂ
we listened to the shuffling behind us, faint footsteps downÂ
and out the rear exit while we waited for whateverÂ
was next, the whole city thumping in the pulse of our held hands.
The driver turned to us and we saw his face for the first time,Â
how tired he was, how much older than we thought.
He pushed the lever that opened the door, made a sweepingÂ
after you gesture, and we realized we were the only ones
on the bus, that we’d reached the literal end of the line.Â
He turned off the headlights, ceiling lights, engine, the busÂ
groaning into its final stop. We smiled and wished him both
buenas noches and buenos dias as he waved us away toward sunrise.Â
The spotlit monuments led us to our hotel where we devouredÂ
warm rolls and café con leche before we fell into our bedÂ
and slept deep into the day, all the way through our tourÂ
of the Basilica, which we’d heard is stunning, not to be missed.
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Horse Not Zebra
When med students are learning
how to diagnose symptoms, they’re told
think horse, not zebra—the common, not the exotic.Â
Which is good advice even if you’re not a doctor.
Like when your phone rings at 3:00 in the morning,
think wrong number, not who died?Â
Or if your love is over an hour lateÂ
for dinner and hasn’t called to explain, thinkÂ
gridlock, not head-on; dead zone, not dead.Â
When the guy in the truck doesn’t slow down
much less stop when you step into the crosswalk,Â
think distracted, not son-of-a-bitch. Recall the time
your mind was still at work, how shocked you wereÂ
to see in your rearview a woman in the crosswalk  Â
flipping you off with both hands.
And if you’re steaming in a mile long backup  Â
because protesters have blocked the bridge again,Â
don’t think where are the damn copsÂ
when you need them, think how,Â
when popping sounds wake you at night,
you think firecracker, not gun.
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Scouts
Those who are gone from us—
I hate calling themÂ
the dead. It makes them seemÂ
so serious, if not symbolic, so heavyÂ
with the knowledge they carry.
Let’s not forget that those who left
were lighthearted and surprising:Â
my mother at the dinner tableÂ
pulling a derringer from a hidden pocketÂ
and shooting her grandson in the forehead
with a single, sharp bullet of water. ThisÂ
after a day of the boy sneaking upÂ
on aunts and cousins and drenching themÂ
in rapid fire super-soaker. He was pleasedÂ
with his mischief but not as pleased asÂ
the family when Granny meted out justice.
The boy, she said, had been a horse’s rosette,Â
her vivid euphemism for asshole.Â
This morning I woke early in the dark
with a terrible ache to talk to her again,
thirty years since she went to her Great Reward,
a term she favored for its irony
since she believed that the Reward is a choice
between going up in smoke
or lying deep in the dirt, both of which
sounded better to her than pearly gates
and eternal perfect boredom.
I don’t know why I wanted so badly
to hear her strong voice, her robust laughter.
Or why it was suddenly important to ask her
about the origin of horse’s rosette since I’ve never
heard anyone but her and all of her descendants,
including me, brandish it like a coat of arms. Â
Of course, she didn’t tell me, but I heard
her voice, heard her say, Scouts, call us scouts.
And it made sense, the ones who go aheadÂ
to make sure the trail is clear, the water safe.Â
The ones who leave signals for the rest—
a white ribbon tied to a cactus, an arrowÂ
painted on a boulder with beet juice, a secret
word carved into a tree. When I ask herÂ
if she left signs for me, her laughter ricochetsÂ
in my head like a bullet echoing across a canyon.Â
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Live Like a Bear Is Near
I sometimes tell people I pass on the streetÂ
that I just saw a bear a couple blocks back. It’s a lie,Â
but true to the bears I have seen, like the oneÂ
that hoisted itself over a privacy fence and landed
on its front legs, back legs waggling the air likeÂ
someone learning to dive. Steadied, it driftedÂ
to the middle of the street, tracked the white lineÂ
to the playground where no children played, slippedÂ
behind a hedge and disappeared. No one saw it but meÂ
and a black cat that fled, hackles up, Halloween style.Â
I love the sudden thrill that flashes on their faces.
They pull their earbuds out and scan the area, decidingÂ
if they’ll go the way of the cat, or stay the course. MostÂ
keep going, fully alert, maybe for the first timeÂ
noticing both the brilliant green moss filling the sidewalk gaps,
and the highest limb of the sycamore stretchingÂ
like a tightrope to the cracked attic window across the street.
They listen like they haven’t listened since they were teensÂ
sneaking out of the house. They listen for the thunk of a trash bin,Â
for tumbled cans and bottles, for a shout or a howl. They squintÂ
at every dark shape and shadow, become themselves as silentÂ
as bears, attuned to smallest vibrations. When they don’t seeÂ
the bear that was never there, they are equal parts relieved
and disappointed, aroused by the force of mixed feelings.Â
They stand on the corner waiting for someone to come along,
eager to warn them to beware, a bear is near.Â
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Baton
Even the bluebird fadesÂ
to gray as summer burns out.
The hawk’s fearless screech
sounds more like grief exhausting itself.
I spend the afternoon deadheading
daylilies until my fingers numb, my backÂ
and knees petrify. I remind myself thatÂ
new blossoms will blaze the path tomorrow,Â
and the stressed sugar maples I plantedÂ
in spring are tipped with new growth.
I lift a handful of mulch to my nose, breatheÂ
the trees inside. And here comes the old couple,Â
climbing the steep street. He’s frail and stoopedÂ
but setting a steady pace, one arm reachingÂ
back, hand open as if waiting for a batonÂ
to be placed in his palm by the womanÂ
following him. She’s taller and strongerÂ
looking, her beacon-red hair piled so highÂ
I think at first it’s a hat. Arm outstretched,Â
she slips her hand smoothly into his and seemsÂ
to glide to his side. As they pass me they waveÂ
as if they are the liberators of Barnard Avenue.Â
On the man’s red sweatshirt is a silkscreened face
that looks familiar, but I can’t place it until I see
the single word above the flowing black hairÂ
and dashing beret: Che. No last name needed.
I think the sweatshirt must be as old as the man
himself, throwback on top of throwback, embersÂ
of revolutionary fire. But then I realize it’s new,
unfaded, still a little stiff. And the look on his faceÂ
isn’t wistfulness or irony, it’s devotion
to a future he won’t see any more than I willÂ
see the struggling maples grow tall enough to shadeÂ
the house in summer. How can I not raise my mulchÂ
encrusted fist in salute, my flagging will surgingÂ
like a relay runner reaching out to hand off the baton?
from Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022)
Asheville Sonnet-and-Two
Can’t walk a block here without coming to a box
of free books or pet supplies or folded affirmations.
At the dive called Burger Bar they don’t serve burgers.
But the carrot dog is top-notch. On tap is dark and hopped.
I take my visiting friend, meat-and-two guy, to breakfast—
all he wants is toast and two eggs fried
but his only choice is poached on a hill of greens
with vinaigrette. He does the Jack Nicholson scene—
orders the poached on a hill, hold the dressing. Hold the hill.Â
Side of toast. Not possible. But at least he gets the toast.Â
For sunset we drink a beer beside the railroad track
beside the French Broad and listen to a sweet-sad cello solo.
Above the greenway across the river the homeless hideÂ
behind a curtain of kudzu that will disappear come winter,
the tents, bedrolls, blankets, strewn trash appear.
Engraved along the greenway, eco-poems on pedestals.Â
previously unpublished
Asheville Sonnet with TurkeysÂ
Jackson Park never was a park, was the west
slope of a small mountain, wildlife
and Cherokee, a handful of hardscrabble farms,
then a prosperous, rolling orchard.
Now my house and my neighbors’ stair-stepÂ
from the bus stop at the footÂ
to Ace on top, not an apple tree to be seen.
Every morning I walk past a last stand of pines
and hear a couple dozen roosting turkeysÂ
send wake-up calls to each other. OneÂ
by one they hurl themselves into the air, spreadÂ
their wide wings and glide right over me
landing as softly as the last note of a hymn.Â
They fall in and patrol, all day, block after block,
stopping traffic, rightful heirs claiming what’s theirs.
previously unpublished
