Anklet

If I were to make a road map,
I’d begin with where I am
which would span into the metro
and plains mountains deserts
oceans continents that haven’t
had the please of my bare
feet digging through their
soil grain dirt dust sand—
our toes sliding over white
porous stone on glowing
cerulean greenblue seas—

The map veins would circle
in the net of longitude-latitude
yarn choking the hemispheres
in place—a fat ham in my
mother’s Chicago Easter Morning
Kitchen, the lines holding meat,
threading spools of fishing line,
wrapping packages.

I’d sketch the map of every thing
that ever passed between us—
word and wave stitched together
with the string around your ankle.

The Weight

I keep wanting to start things, but I'm afraid of finishing.
When you finish something, you want it to be good, to be right, to know perfection.

But that's too much Weight.

The Weight

For Thomas Walter, Stephen Thomas, and Thomas Stephen.

I laid down in my home town, feeling the weight of the dead,

fresh off the flying machine with altitude dropping in my head.

Here, brother, I made it, where’s Grandfather in his eternal bed?

He looked down, and shook his head, and Here was all he said.

Let your cross fall, Grandmother.

Let your burden fall free.

Let your cross fall, Grandmother, and

pass your lover’s timber box on to me.

I picked out dark sister, and I took her to the alley to hide,

then I saw how same and different we are, standing at her side.

I said Hey Sister, where’s your life going, there downtown?

She said, It’s something else—this town ain’t a place to stay around.

Lay your load down, Father.

Let your weight fall free.

Lay your load down, Father, and

pass your handle on to me.

Go hush great-grandchild, there’s nothing you’ll ever say;

It’s us asleep and waiting—to see the man on Judgment Day.

Well Thomas, my brother, our children, he’ll never see,

But I say, Burn our worries, brother, our stories will keep us company.

Let your pain fade, Thomas.

Let your name be free.

Let your pain fade, Thomas, and

pass your name right on to me.

Mister Grief came in shadow stalking, and settled on me, a fog.

He said, I will take your heart, blanket and warm you in my smog.

I told him, I’ll stay awhile, Darling, but I’ll leave you alone, man.

He said, You think you’ll leave, girl, but you’ll come back when can.

Take a load off, child.

Leave it there buried.

Take a load off, child, and

put it in the ground for me.

We held our unthorned roses, and all stood there in line.

Our ungloved hands, were shaking then, knowing it was time

To drop the petals and the bones, with the casket all as one.

We said goodnight, grand man, rest well from everyone.

Take a load off, Grandfather.

Let your spirit fly free.

Take a load off, Grandfather, and

You stay in heaven and keep a watch on me.

I Was Climbing In The Rain (Brand New Poem!)

When the kettle came off the stove
with a whistle and the smell of forgotten toast
I cursed the coils for trapping food beneath themselves.
Such greed displayed in the morsel hoarded there.
I thought it selfish.
And the steam
when I emptied the steel out into my glass mug
crawled up the air and I felt it on my cheek
because it was a quiet love letter
from some man some place.
I closed my eyes and felt its warmth to my shoulders and down
so I breathed and grabbed my keys.

It was raining and I thought it ought to be snow—
quiet and cold—just the same with the
sliding of tires on the hill and the way my eyes felt.
But my cheeks were still warm from the steam and
the color stayed until I opened my empty mailbox
and remembered my eye-open dreams
where letters are for novels and
tea waited, steeping for me.

I smiled at the sadness of reality
that I, with words like these, might
not know an address for their envelope.
So in the buzzing yellow and the icy drops
I laughed like tobacco at the thought of you,
and how you had let me become a drug
that you could swirl in your fingers and exhale
in any weather.
Smoke to climb the same air, to break under falling love.