grows a little smaller, further
away. I’m sheathed in leaky neoprene.
Another wave rolls over me before
I catch, then lose, my breath: the atmosphere
and sea gleam mica, glint their pinks and greens.
Foam lifts me, holds me, sings me back toward shore
as something flickers in a distant trough;
lit windblown water droplets—jewels—they shine.
Another wave rolls over me. Before
my eyes, a distant skimmer nears and spears
a silverside. It’s gorgeous, then it’s gone.
Foam lifts me, holds me, sings me back toward shore.
“Your poem,” said Danny, “needs more beauty. More.”
I paddle, touch the water to touch sun.
Another wave rolls over me before
I’m lifted, held, I’m sung right back to shore.
Exit Wound
John, 1975–1995
Your knees that afternoon were caked with dust
and other matter—life’s particulate
remains unstuck from his apartment floor.
We spent three hours searching for the place.
And when your finger found the dimple just
beneath the sill (it ricocheted) I watched
your face, all day a tangled knot of pain,
grow slack. The face I saw was his, or his
age nine at Gettysburg beside the storm-
felled tree from which he yanked a musket ball.
He bit the slug like on TV and broke
his tooth. He cried. He was a boy. We knelt
a moment, touched the bullet, touched what now
tears headlong through our lives. He was a boy.
Thirtysomething Blues
Shannon
It’s not the risk we mind, but consequence.
To do without at twenty-two was “in.”
Yet now we’ve had, to have not stings. We wince
at what, in younger days, we sought: the chance
of sloughing all we never meant to own.
It’s not the risk we mind, but consequence.
The job, car loan, the mortgage on the house:
the things we need are things, not dreams but plans.
How once we’ve had, to have not stings. We wince
at possibility should it yield less,
no lamb and cherries, nightly glass of wine.
It’s not the risk, mind you, it’s consequence.
We’ll quit! We’ll walk! We’ll move to France!
Responsible adults know my refrain:
Yes, once you’ve had, to have not stings. I wince
mid-concert when you say, “I’ll sing like this
someday.” Those notes won’t pay the taxman, Shan.
It’s not the risks we mind, but consequences,
as once we’ve had—we wince—to have not stings.
SOWEBO
Southwest Baltimore
By the time the boy’s tooth chips and bloody
hair mats his scalp cradled beside the spokes,
which spin and clack, this does not matter.
Not the curbside assault, not the battery.
What matters here is the grace with which
Angelo extends his hand I like your bike
then yanks the boy mid-wheelie, plucks him
by the collar, then bounces him down Hollins
Market’s marble antebellum steps give it to me.
Sure, the pack moves over him like water over
a stone, holds and obscures him, their blows
a tide fists cannot fight. On the fire escape
I look away from this, notice paint flecks
dropping like they know they’re lead or bags
snagged in tree limbs filling with their threats
of flight. I want to shuck the boy from the thin
shell of my closed eyelids. Some stall keeper
swings her push broom, hollers at the pack
to go on home, voice a stroller ramming a wall.
