Miscarriage Again

Death,
    you are the enemy, you took two friends,
and if you can hold them you have seized the wind.
We weep for ones taken, and are as shaken
by bleak absence as by your uninvited presence.

At dinner, we sit around the table with living kin.
We pray and, when our eyes open to each other’s faces, 
we linger over life in a womb—with two fingers
we make small guesses—No bigger than this?  Yes! 

    Death, we do not want for grief,
but there is a Wing you may not reach beneath. 
There, your hand cannot grasp fragile forms
and your grip has ceased to close on even these
tiny
living human beings.

August Night

Watched by stars we lay reposed, settled on the sod.
The breeze leans—cinder clouds respond as to a prod.

You ask aloud, is smallness good, I give a little nod
and look up from our cul-de-sac into the face of God.

A thread of light, bluish white, silently is flown—a stitch
to gather tats and rags, to hem our flesh and bones.

Grains of sand ride the sky, a moment they are shown.
We lay reposed and wonder at our longing to be sewn.

Elephant

The elephant, the thick-heavy wrinkle,
Shows no movement. 
He stands in the room like a defendant.
Like boots put in a box, he may not walk again. 

I’d like to read, or watch TV, but there he is. 
The crushed sofa, the love seat—
There’s no place to be. 
So, busily, we make the elephant a pet;

Busily, busily we ignore and he remains. 
Once, I reach around him.
Twice, you try to find me and (I know)
There’s almost-absolutely-no-one there. 

The ghost of my shadow tells you
To not worry the beast,
To not even think of mice or make a move
That might disrupt the elephanty peace. 

And though we want to forgive,
We cannot forget HIM. 
So, we go on tiptoe while he stands there:
A sad sturdy brow and four enormous feet.

Shepherds Of The Street

The shepherds of the street who pass our house
each day do not suppose they go their way for me.
By gentle steps, one or two move past our place.

At times, a posse walks up to the store
to meet some friends or buy a pack of smokes

and as they go, they talk to me if I am there
and rise above my fear to catch their eye.
Or I may give a Hey, to my surprise.

I am sure I never have that much to say,
but when we speak—or nod our heads to make a sign,
or pound our fists to greet, or even when,

from in the house, I hear them on their way—
I find their presence to be not unlike a compass.

The shepherds of the street do not suppose
they go for me, but, steady, move their feet
south by southwest or else north by northeast.

Broken

Between us, on a tabletop of glass,
a working hand becomes a hammer.

A man wants his way.
He won’t take no.

Blood, though not spilled, boils.
Shards ring out and sing

the ways we will not mend—
how the heart, like a fractal,
repeats a pattern of breaks
and splits when magnified.

My heart rages.  It pushes blood
along a crooked line of strife

until I heed the rattle-crack
and attend the bang of anger.

The embittered rackets rise until
the broken pieces lay at rest between us.