Death, has that been your hand
pressing on my back all these years?
I thought it was the clock

with its pincers and knives,
its Catherine wheels
and little distances.

Was that your black neon
flashing in the dark
that I followed like a scent?

Your constant comparisons
are a ruler by which I lay out
my plot. Thing is,

it’s a relative measure,
it’s not absolute. It kills
me every time I use it.

And your cloak of fine
distinctions, of thought,
at first was just a loan,

but now I wear it greedily,
coveting it even
when it’s on my own shoulders,

your finger like a flipped tag
poking at my neck.

Categories: Poems
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Sitting near the window,
some days a breeze touches my skin

some days it seems
no wind is blowing at all

though outside the house
the trees are always stirring

Springwater, NY

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No, never actually had dreams
like that, with people I woke up
missing, only occasional falling

dreams, three, maybe
in my life, same cliff always,
always steel blue in the night

beautiful image for a kid,
and the river below
and several of playing

the piano so well I almost
broke into tears
right there in the dream

I was that good, and again
when I woke up knowing I’d
quit lessons when I was eight

and couldn’t remember the damn
music anyway, and wondered
days later what talent I was

currently squandering
and promptly shoved that
thought down too

Categories: The Grind
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I love the sound of the metal men’s room door
as it scrapes across the broken metal threshold,

and I love the way my skin seems to be
falling apart before my eyes, huge flakes
of it snowing down on my shirts and faces

of the ones I love and teach so that they
get the dry heaves even as I approach,

and I love the guy in the Hummer
this morning who ran the stop sign
in the dark and then drove slowly
on the snowy roads spitting

salt and sand on my windshield for two
miles before finally running the red light

so that I didn’t even have the chance to get
out of my car and tell him what I really thought,

and I love the two old women making
their way down the street in the dark
tonight, one hand each on the rusted cart

stuffed with shopping bags stuffed
with other shopping bags, clothes that might

or might not fit, empty pop cans,
bottles and all covered with snow.

Categories: Poems
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