“Commas,” “Diet,” and “Understanding the Dead”

In a low-slung stone building

        commas return like monks, slightly

drunk after sipping Trappist Ale.

        They have taken a vow of silence

and do not hum between titles of hymns,

        films, foreign phrases and blessings.

They slumber, numb as their secret order,

        rise at 3AM, send their prayers

across continents of words, calm the sudden

        inhaling and exhaling of syllables that wander

into tunnels without flashlights, fall headlong

        in puddles where frogs croak a carnival

of love. Commas have copied their shapes

        from crescent moons. They glow, low

on a line’s horizon, fold between snowstorms,

        feathers, fur, three-legged priests,

plants after rainstorms that smell of dirty

        gym socks. When men pause to define

the day, commas unclog shrubs

        from wild herbs, turnips from slugs,

tangelos from spider webs and the sun.

        They are the pauses between the dead on Lexington Green.

They trail their bits of light like English

        ivy, calm the stems, breathe

between strands of pearls, between

        hallucinations filling a hurricane night,

between blurs of the criminal world

        and views of Mt. Vancouver. They referee

with smooth swipes, subtle slashes

        of the gospel between auras and crass ways—

at least that’s what I was taught

        in Sunday School, our hands folded,

syllables skimming on the pastor’s lips.

Damn those greens—supposed to stitch up seams

in my body—a bed of spinach leaves,

watercress, kale and turnip greens

taste like iron, a scrap-metal diet

dressed up with pine nuts and tofu.

Or arugula—sounds like a sick-dog howl

tastes like ethanol that singes

a mouth for hours, reminds me it’s medicine,

bores into me like a sore throat.

I writhe, wriggle, douse the taste with beer,

salted chips and dip. Artichoke dip

fixes any ache any unbalanced mix

of antioxidants bashing through a body.

No more asparagus unless it’s smothered

in hollandaise sauce, butter and more butter,

a splash of sherry served with deep-fried

chicken. Crunch that chicken. And on to beef.

O beef! O meat! that bodacious tough, manly

gust of artery lust. That succulent soul.

Serve it to me red and raw.

You can comb their hair and they don’t care

if you miss a strand or thwap their watch band

Tease them with sassafrass fruit, smile and be cute

when you walk through them when you bamboozle them

when you sing beastly long songs about the wrongs

they did as kids. They lied, they hid

from you, tricked you, cheated you—all true

not really all true. It’s just you

walking through the dead, disturbing their beds,

no curtsy or bow, but finding a tone of mercy thinking berries:

chokeberry, blueberry, snowberry, evergreen berry.

When you die may you grow into a strawberry

or luscious lingonberry, be plucked by a grizzly bear

who tears up a mountain, growls, grunts and hunts

for sleep among the nightclouds where only thoughts

trespass to disturb the dead whose memories live.