At the End of the Road & Other Poems

Image: At the End of the Road & Other Poems

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4 Bone Couplets

“Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone…” —Anne Bradstreet

They outshine the flesh in the reign of desire
Where pink like a blush goes on shining like fire.
Fat necked imbeciles, brain-numbed and wrong
On every backboned thought that ever ran along
The confines of the apple of Adam sweetened
In the birdless cage rump-driven and weakened.
Greed and swagger click the gangling matter
Knuckles cling and circle each limb to tatter.
Hipbones narrow in the faulty weather.
The bare truth flies out on filth-tinged feather.
Bring me back to the place where life can stand!
Let me feel the smooth relief of pounding sand!
This belly swore it would unburden the green.
Within the sulking skull it makes its way to preen.
In the sweet toned laughter where children move
And every old fart says he will not prove
Until the night breaks over those who pray
And every chime kinks the ear heaven to delay.
Relevant as an old donkey on an extended beach
The moon sinks into ripe flesh as if to teach
Those angry cells to leave off all that hunger.
No years will ease—no one will grow younger
Than the moth whose flame has singed his wings
Clacking bare truth to the mercy of things.

5 A Terrible Fish

“In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. —Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”

The nightmare repeats itself:
A daughter clamped tight to each foot
Pulling her down under
The brute waters of the dark, deep lake —
She gasps — imagines she’s drowning
While her husband watching from the levy
Wrings his hands, faints in the heavy fog.
A terrible fish looms under her nose;
She smells blood dripping
From a dozen hooks dangling
From his mouth.
His eyeballs slide out easy
As the drawer of a cash register.
Each eye-socket a window
To her own soul — $ bills
With little jackpots on them
Jump up and dance like clowns
Poking out their tongues,
Flapping signs of slogans
With hammers, sickles, swastikas —
She believes – ¡Sí, se puede!
Morning shivers her awake again,
Stumbling to the bathroom
Where the mirror flashes
In her face that same terrible fish
That has been catching her dreams
And throwing them back
As she chases each $,
Never quite able to grasp enough.

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