Suddenly,
She danced across
The living room floor
Her fat legs transformed
Into feather-light wisps
Of summer air
Arms akimbo
A coquettish smile aglow.
You could have seen the gypsy girl
In her, that ancient thread
Of life she clung
So dearly to
In the face of all
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Trying desperately
To send her to hell.
Life’s a boat,
No ticket required,
No PFD issued,
Just you, naked, barefoot,
All agog,
Wearing only
The Captain’s braid.
All these fears came here,
The agony, the misunderstanding,
The hope, the joy,
The ordinary follies
Of good love and bad;
They’ve spilled away
Into the waiting earth.
Just this echo sounds,
Fading.
I’m afraid my multitudes
Have become fractious
No longer content to simply
Contradict myself
I fly off the handle
At the slightest whim
Come tell me, old man
What great love-burst
Straightened your back
In your days of reckoning?
How did you feel when those
Crusted and cracked hands you held
In the stifling wards of Washington
Ceased finally to stir?
The sweet cleansing heat
Of salty tears and sweat
How you must have howled!
How the moon must have shuddered
To hear it!
It’s time for a brief holiday from the unscrubbed mirror.
So, I see all this stuff
About life and love
And dying
And how the stars echo
Some frail eternal now
And, yes, it’s hard
And though our hands be held
Entwined but ever separate
That skin that marks the boundary
Also holds the keys
And all that
And all that loss
Was dross
And some plain spun funk
Reminds of deathless agony
So far,
So long
Ago
Okay, I get that,
But just what is my job here, anyway?
exiles child 