YOU, WAITING THERE
The fact that I get to meet you for anything,
on a corner in New York City, fills me with awe
for the miracle of my entire existence.
There are many claims to reason,
whoever and whatever is the one,
that anyone, to this pungency you are.
An end and not a history of responses
to happiness as suffering, that bus that hasn’t
killed us yet, and everything forgets to go South.
It is a privilege to serve you.
Whoever and whatever is the one
anyone, that anyone could be,
and hardly is at all as much as the rest.
And yet—to be, what a strange thing
you are to me. A summer night, in this world.
WALLFLOWER
In the long exposure the house
Is frozen, and shadows blur
As they pass their lives along
The walls. Once the tragic
Knowing, then to forget
Sanity and remain, resident exile
The survivor who tells the story.
Or to lift the direct rebellion
And leave no word
That does not contribute.
To return as the ordinary thing
Someone might still know.
IN THE TRIP WE DIDN’T TAKE
In the trip we didn’t take
The feeling of being gone is the addiction.
The oysters we opened were taverns in themselves
In the trip we didn’t take.
Back in Brooklyn a moth sleeps in the lettuce crisper.
Love is a turtle meets a tire, in the trip we didn’t take.
In the trip we didn’t take forgetting is necessary
And no one has ever met your twin.
Or should we not, and we should not
In the trip we didn’t take, go that way.
We grilled sardines behind the house and had them
With a crisp Muscadet, then a cod from Brittany,
And later a cigar with the last of the Chinon, sun gone
Down in the trip we didn’t take. Played guitar and ukulele.
An omelet is a last republic in the trip we didn’t take.
Art is a last resort, coffee is a pharmacy,
And you get whatever you needed in the trip we didn’t take.
Night or day, time was in the trip
We didn’t take. Time was lived that we became
What loved us we become
Not our thoughts inside the trip
In the trip we didn’t take.
Two rivers roll full flood in the trip we didn’t take
Over broader lands and
To a single destiny at sea.
You can be yourself with me in the trip
We didn’t take, you always, and to become.
You have only and just and
Yet, and always, to be
In the trip we didn’t take.
In the trip we didn’t take
You learned to whistle, to swim.
