Sinatra and Water

Swooning with Sinatra,
he drives into the sea with windows down and decides
nothing would be finer than to let the car flood.

Done with staring at a square, a seventeen-inch
black and white, powered off,
finished with filing,
wishing all the while he could
fall off the tree like a turned leaf, he sits,
seat-belted; he watches brine cascade
over the door, sees liquid slip between door and
frame, and thinks that anything could be
better than newsmen prying -
even as his hands pry at the doorhandle,
knowing what neck-high water really means.

Hunger: A Prayer

Dengue fever, back from the retinue of memory, strikes
modern innocents: could this be a sign? A critique? Maybe
plagues are not an indictment at all, as much as reminder
of guilt as smallpox blankets or nooses in the wind. Maybe
Cronos did not eat his children out of anything but the most
animallike hunger.

Our obsessions come back to us, a vertiable jack-in-the-box,
and no creamy chocolate or capsule med can save us; their
pleasure sensation moves as swiftly to obsession as a two-toed
thief. And does sensation end? Can memory be forgotten? Once
dengue fever runs it's course, will chocolate fill the vacuum?

Who prays for the ones not hindered by memory, the forward
looking, the bird who learns not from mother but extending
eye to wing, knowing what each is for? May infinite candles
be lit, may syllables soar skyward, may creation/destruction
come with each breath, may the unhip hop and pipe organ
glories praise the rolling of is into be.

(insert prayer ending here)

The Geometry of Loss

He slumped; the gurgling sound Grandma heard from
the kitchen brought the EMTs, there in time to catch
the aftermath, drooling from a mouth frozen square.
It was clear the situation could not be repulsed, and
he was hustled away on a rectangle. With wheels.

That was the day the fuzzy edges hardened. No more
reminiscing about the arcs of sugarcane, no more TV
blaring football. Now, in a home devoid of heavy steps
borne of shrapeneled knees, a home where people
retreat to the kitchen and sip coffee to stave off talk,
my sister and I run circles around these pointed edges.

What was it my mother cooed (to me?) in quiet moments?
"The world is going down, baby. The world is going down."

Beginning

Birds sing. Bamboo sways.
Cows sit in shade. Grass lies down
in an untouched grove.

I sit cross-legged.
Light eases between the leaves.
Harmony is here.