Postcard from a Destination
Ive heard a man would need a keel
bone six feet long
to cradle muscle enough to pull him
up on his own, keep him in the air,
or wind between a breeze and a gale,
a bit more than enough water
to drown in, and a sense
of displacement to set sail.
A keel bone is not a rudder, but
either can get you here.
I suppose I should say, it was warm
and clear here today, or
boats have keels and birds
have keel bones.
Was I the space between the ruffled
feathers on a robins red breast
a wispy yen for warmthbefore
you knew me?
A keels leading edge
is called a cutwater,
not to be confused with
a shearwatera seabird
seldom seen from shore.
This note could fit in a bottle; ones
being emptied; the last red drop rolls
down its neck.
Soon dregs will rest in the curve
of the wineglasss bellya hammocks
sag here, where the days dregs sit on the sea
at the far edge of everything.
Here is me; I am here; I am desire; I
am nothing when you come, I fear.
I'll miss you when you're here. Stay
home; keep me forever.
Dangerous Goods
Praise be unto the alchemical Canadians
for turning HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
into DANGEROUS GOODS; you drove
that day three years ago, and I sat beside you,
thrilled by the sign, by the recognition
in the turning unfamiliar of a phrase. And it
is too easy to think of you, the greatest good
in my liferisking the cliché while I drive
alone this spring across the country. The word
ontology ambushes me as I sit eating alone
at Demitri's Greek Restaurant in Dunkirk,
New York, and the power plant looms outside
on Lake Erie. Gulls wheel in the gloaming
as the lights come on, and carve a pumpkin
with an abstraction is all I can think to do
the ontology of jack-o-lanterns. I create
a countenance to comfort me in your absence,
but think of candles and their flickering nature
to be enlightened or to be benighted.
The Prince of Denmark joins you and Jack,
and reminds me of my Fortinbras-father,
a man of action in our hometown. And here
I sit, out in the world, contemplating the being
of jack-o-lanterns, which will haunt me
whenever I'm away again from you.