Land Conductor

Your little hands gripped the controller
as you walked steadily, purposefully toward
the water's edge.
On a forty-five-degree day at the lake,
legs in white shorts, intently advancing.

Whhhzzzzzzzzzz,
Whhzzzzzzzzz

the gentle whir entered the atmosphere
as if calling to you as you
willed it to budge.
Your little torso pushed forward, feet planted.
Finger pressing an unseen button:

Whhzzzzzzzz,
Whhhzzzzzzzzzzz

Out to sea, where the water met
a receding ice shelf was marooned
the little motor boat
you were trying to bring inland.
It rolled and rammed up against the ice

Whhhhhzzzzzzzzzz.

I walked along, you standing there shoreside, trying,
and I know you weren't giving up. Even though
you were in the shade and in shorts, and it seemed unlikely—
you looked around as if for help
and pushed the button again.

On the simple pleasure of literary possibility

What is more beautiful
than a sharpened
Dixon Ticonderoga

and a white page
plush
and ripe for impression

Mr. November

Stalking around the window frame,

sensory cilia 

a thousand satellites

Eight-leggedness is creep

He's stopped

mid-millimeter-track

from pane

You trump, radiate

Spurting mobility, you advance,

the game -

all yours

Could a grander arm fell you? 

Poem on the Occasion of Katharine's Wedding to Anthony

Love
when spoken in a word, is much too shallow.
It says what the salesmen say
and finds itself divvied
between unintending pairs.

But this is something more
and now cannot be misunderstood:

What it means to say is,
There is an ocean of us
where we flow in and out,
back and forth,
over and around and all through each other.
There is an ocean whose borders end at our skin.

It means to say
no one else
shines quite like you
or inspires my heart to lift
simply by your presence.

It means to say
you are all the goodness and promise in the world,
the hope of life --
you are the challenge, the battle, the ache, the fulfillment.

It means to say
your universe is where I swim;
I am coated in all that you feel and want and dream.

It means to say, I will concede --
I will speak softly --
I will be humbled.

It means to say
I account for you;
I am your keeper.

It means to say
I respect you.

It means to say
I give myself to you wholly, unabashed
and unafraid -- because you
are my chosen,
and you have chosen me --

so that whatever balance the universe imposes,
you give -- I give --
and that is how We will be.

Crow in the parking lot

Crows have always struck me as unnervingly large;

I encounter one in the Barnes & Noble parking lot pecking

stupidly at a balled-up sandwich wrapper.

Gusted over from the Chick-Fil-A?

It topped the foundation of the demolished
Macaroni Grill. Ventilation issues, I guess.

Brainless, I thought—with his barren beady eyes

but you know, he's instinctual

and he's probably uncovering cheese

or some delightful crumbs hidden from me.

Soul baby

 You have everything—
     you have the art
     and the
                 inattention
      Passion
      and Heart and
      Tease.

You are flesh
of the untouchable, homo
  Sapien form

You
transmit my sensual,
unspeakable message
        in lyrics to me

hold you like our net
    raptured one around
                    the other
                           
Behold
   Beholden

You ebb, wax

Burgeon into my subconscious
                                and I wake
                                Always—
             to phantom permission,
        broken awe—

Mom

I remember your laugh because
it is mine.