“Cancer: A Paean,” “Legacy,” and “The Three Nuns: A Contrapuntal for Voice and Canvas”
Abditive—that’s you,
sneaky sniper, taking us out
more than a hundred types of ways.
A name change per each organ,
tissue, cell you invade...bronchus,
lung, prostate, colon, uterus...
From the shade you surface
“Old Bookstores,” “World,” and “Spoor”
are sad places, where the dead wait to be loved.
A teenager in the poetry section
sits on a red milk carton,
her black lipstick like an opera,
pulling one book down after another
in a frenzy of polite quiet.
“To the Dead Man Living Inside My Knee” and “What I Thought Was Pollution Was Really God”
A careless dictator, most days
I do not think of you
unless you protest, beating your fists
against the walls of my flesh
when I’ve danced you too hard
or damp February
clenches your teeth
into a knot of hot fury. Please
“If These Walls Could Talk,” “Images of Night,” and “Overheard on a Train”
If only these walls could talk
we wonder
What might goad their reluctant tongues?
Wondered more often
by those who would be betrayed or wounded by the
small talk or gloating of these walls
“Immortality in a Song,” “Meditation,” and “Repose”
The song begins—
the first beat calls forth
an aroma of strawberry syrup
from your vape as its smoke
dances with the music, past my nose,
and out through the windows
of your 2012 red Toyota Camry.
“Farewell, My Lovelies,” “A Chameleon Named Silencio,” and “The Unwoke Wizard of Oz”
Good riddance, alcohol.
Good riddance mary-jane.
Good riddance hashish and uppers and downers.
Good riddance Timothy Leary … we hardly knew ye.
Good riddance to
those bottles of quenching cold ice-cold cottonmouth-inducing beer & ale
and those steins of on-tap room-temp Guinness stout
— it’s good for you the billboard said and the billboard wouldn’t fib.