NOAH'S ARK
The rain falls in great drops upon the sidewalk
like the muddy footprints of a small dog
soon melding into one great stain of black.
The ocean is rising and the dog
paddles frantically
eyes bulging as houses
throw on their lights.
A man follows his wife past three windows
his mouth opens and closes like a large fish
while her seaweed hair moves in the tide
of her no-ing. Upstairs
an old woman watches a blank screen
shoulders shaking off the undertow that wants
to take her. Children run in circles
and she sits, arms outstretched
trying to reach the surface.
The dark weeds of the lawn are sodden
giving up the secrets strangled
from the grass
while water rises, rises, and drowning faces
press against the glass.
By morning the ocean had subsided;
the sidewalk shows through
like the floating bodies
of small grey dogs.
¤ ¤ ¤
THE FEEDING PLACE
A raccoon lived under the mill last winter
crusts
broken cookies
the last inch of cereal
fed him.
I trudged evenings through the knee-deep snow
to the sheltering where cedar fence lines met
and snow's a foot deep in winter
imagined midnight creatures shoveled and plowed
before machinery woke me at six.
Some nights I forgot. Mornings, slipperclad
hugging a quilted housecoat with one arm
I slogged to the feeding place and dumped
the overloaded tub.
It's too late! I'd hear him say.
I sleep days. The birds
will eat it.
Come back tonight and make me happy.
These days it seems
I'm out of step with time.
Nocturnal lovers
refuse my daylight crumbs.
¤ ¤ ¤
IT IS A GIVEN
We all rise
from the forest of our mother's pubis
with an angel attached.
It is a thunderhead
that follows us everywhere
for the rest of whatever
life casts us into.
It is the ecstacy that evades us
but for the once,
and the madness that strikes us
all too often.
Like intelligence
it runs from us when we need it most
calling us names
with its backwards mouth and then sneaking up behind
swollen head lolling on our shoulder
while its fingers that smell of monkey
play with our tongue
making us say the stupidest things.
Afterwards, it is there
to kiss the skull we slam against the wall
to give us blow jobs when we need them most
to remind us that it is always there
for blame;
like our own death
it is
a given.
