FROM LAKE MICHIGAN SCROLLS

Mythical Creatures

Long after the last unicorn disappeared
it was said there had once been an animal
that looked like a cross between horse and gazelle
except for a long straight horn
that jutted from its forehead.
It liked to gently lay its head
on the laps of young maidens who sat in the forest
but became extinct when conniving hunters
dressed up like women would sit and wait
with daggers hidden beneath their skirts
and killed the noble unicorns.

And after the elephants disappeared
it was said there had once been an animal
with ears as large as window shades
and two large tusks it would sometimes use
to carry trees it had uprooted
with its hose of a nose that could also be used
to suck
up water from the river.

And after the last poet disappeared
it was said there had once been people
who would spend their lives stringing words together
talking their rhythms, dancing their rhymes,
making nonsense seem like reason
and logic like a drunk.
They would dream their apartments into palaces,
dream their poverty to wealth
while their children, hollow-eyed and hungry
prayed for some cure to be discovered
for this mania for words.

Confession

When I think of the time I have killed,
the days I have murdered,
some that died easily,
days like phlegmatic fish that were ready to die,
days like sluggish birds
that would otherwise have been prey for cats,
tired, exhausted days like ponderous, rotten trees
or old dogs with sleep in their bones.

But even vital and lively days I have murdered,
stepped up behind them when they were happiest,
at the peak of their vigor,
and slipped my knife of fine-tempered boredom
between their ribs
and watched with no emotion
as they slumped to the ground.

And often, usually in the cold grey of winter
or when rain came as a depressing drizzle,
I would take a day up to my apartment
and we would have a snack and talk
and listen to music
and then we would stretch out on the studio couch
still talking and thinking
until I, sometimes against my will,
would hold a pillow over the day's face
until all breathing stopped.

Some days died hard –
days I would ply with liquor and bludgeon to death
or poison with special emotions I had developed.
Some I even starved to death,
locked them up in parlors of puritan Sundays
which became stone towers
with moats of abstinence around them
and let them rot with television and bridge.

The days of summer I treated most gently.
I would always choose one of exceptional beauty
and we would lie for hours on the warm beach
turning slowly, slowly,
facing the orange sun as it moved through the sky
and then, just before dusk,
I would suggest that we go out for one last swim
and we would step into the cool water
and wade past the breakers
and swim out, out past the sandbars and buoys
to a spot as deep green as dark moss
and we would tread water for a few moments
and look up at the first star
and then, as the last trace of color drained from the sky,
I would press the day's head down under the waves,
waiting until the bubbles stopped showing
before I could swim back to shore alone.

Of course there was some remorse at first,
in autumn with its anguish of leaves turning brown
or in winter with its finality of ice,
when I would think back with a sense of loss
for all the beautiful days I'd destroyed,
though lately such qualms no longer disturb me.

But I know I'm almost finished;
there is not much time left to kill
and there are fewer days that I care to murder.
Besides, I have been so careless with these crimes –
someone is certain to find the skeleton
of a murdered day wedged between the rocks
or the hand of a mutilated day
protruding from the ground
with some incriminating clue nearby,
like my glove or my comb or the print of my shoe,
and I will be apprehended at last
and locked up with days and days and days
that will sooner or later
torture me to death.

(Confession was originally published in Victoria Hotel,
however the end of the poem was edited out.)