Couple of Two-by-Fours

The magazine tells us exactly how to make it look
like a real home, how to nest loose cushions
in the corners of the couch, hang pots from the
unsuspecting ceiling. A rug from a garage sale
gives life to an otherwise drab bedroom.
We separate our toiletries into his and her boxes,
assemble a kitchen table with nails,
the bottom half of a door, and a couple
of two-by-fours, dress it up with an old sheet.

Night after night, the cat saunters the hallway.
We sample wines from boutiques,
scotches from remote marshes.
You’re the ghost I’ve always wanted.
My womanliness is a textbook
that puts you to sleep. I make a pot
of angel hair for dinner—withered, illusory—
sloppily drain water from the sauce into the sink.

Waiting for the Next Direction

They’ve sandbagged the art museum,
the music building, Hancher Auditorium
and pray the river will crest
at thirty-three feet. It depends on whether or not
the sky gives up, stops sending rain
onto our streets. We ignore the damage reports
from Dorchester and Decorah, go on
rescuing sheet music from Handel, costumes
from Brigadoon. The world is so full of theories.

Once all of the real artwork is safe in a semi
on dry land and seven of ten grand pianos
have been saved, they tell us to go home.
In the blue light of your television screen,
the weatherman clings to his map,
pleads, “The sky is a reflection of the ocean.
If you want to see what’s wrong, look
in the mirror.” The ocean? This is farmland.
There’s nothing we can do but wait,
take the hit just like they did in Cedar Rapids.

Already, it’s too late. Our concerns are Baroque,
tightly wound, dismal plunks and pings
on a harpsichord. Low alto notes
won’t do anything for us now.

Day Song

They tell us not to sleep,
but the morning is a narcotic.
Let us live the entire day asleep
in the child we once were.
That is one thing we can’t destroy:
that is the peace the stays.

Anatomical Exercises (2)

The sun returns after three days
of cold and clouds. The shadow of one
chimney stretches across some other
house’s roof. I remove my will,
the armor that is slight and flavorless.
Like living in some pitiful recess.

Now I wish to experience
the full expression of each word,
to let the body be tired and hungry.
To join the way the old masters believed:
in solitude, in the service of others.

Being Visited During Illness

I was ill so long I did not count the days.
At one meal, and again at the next,
thoughts entered my mind
like spring cardinals. Sadly chirping,
hungry for seed, they tormented me.

Such thinking I wanted to keep—
like Sheeba’s throne. I ingested wheat,
milk, eggs laid by hens that were free.

This morning, those same thoughts came.
I rose and stepped toward the window.
Not a single bird on any branch.

Gardening

The eye isn’t complex
and humans are merely adaptable.
Even a honeycomb leaves you
unimpressed. What amazes you
about the body is not that
it gives out but that it gives at all.

Fool Beware

I knew if I found you I couldn’t walk
the beach at low tide, sulking along
a half-mile stretch of sand resembling
the moon—pock-marked, desolate.
Avoidance was my way of loving you.

Later, my body became a meadow
and like the white cow grazing
all night, I ate, let it grow. Fat
and full of agitation, I soured,
let it waste away. Large-small,

I lived as a bellows. There
was never a moment’s peace.
My mind blew everything over.

The Right Thing to Do

To spend one’s life sunk
like a bush sprouting from
a shallow river—
green, budding but unable
to move. Before that, there

was a pool with aqua tile.
You waited till the others
left. Then released the rage
in your body—a cannonball,
frantic splash in a shallow end.

At a Remove

Let the owl coo—he can’t lift
this friction. I sip it all morning,
feel my stomach grow dyspeptic.
I hear my mother’s voice—
take care. I wish she’d call
and when she does she can’t
remember who she is calling.
That was my first creation.

Now what hides inside me
is up-down, indigo-orange,
happy-unhappy. I confuse
self-love with self-pity.

Beau Monde

I put down my bag and lie on the grass.
A bird calls out. The high-pitched signal
reminds me god rests in the mind
and not in other people’s praises. I climbed
that slope, slid down. Here I rest, my heart
closed to illusion. Why mock
the bird’s incessant tweet? I created
a drunk, uncertain world, one made
of sugar, wine, wheat. Now I will do
what the ancients speak: Let dusk be
void of meaning—released.