I also seem to go into lulls shortly after the publication of books, and my twelfth collection, No Doubt the Nameless, was published last month. I suppose a psychologist could make something of that tendency to lapse after a book shows up, but it's not really something that especially troubles me. I used to think, "Uh-oh, I'm all done-- out of material." But I have learned that I seem to revive.
In any case, here are the two new poems.
A Grandson Sleeps on My Chest
The
thread of drool from his lip to my shirt
shows
lovely, prismatic, refracting the beams
of
this fine warm April sun as I loll on a couch.
Those
colors won’t blend with the song
from
the Classic Country station I just tuned in.
Hank
Williams is lonely, and it damn near kills him.
There’s
a dog asleep too, in a circle of light
on
the rug, near a pair of rattles, a teething ring,
and
a bear that his great grandmother
fabricated
years back for this sweet little sleeping child’s father.
Oh I
could get going on how that father,
our
son, has become such a huge good man
when
only yesterday, as the cliché has it,
I
held him just this way.
Oh I
could get going all right about the absence
of
the big-hearted woman who made the bear,
which
has twice the bulk of this boy in my arms.
I
could fret for the thousandth time that maybe I’ve failed
as
man or parent or husband,
but
no, I won’t be going that way, or those.
Hank’s midnight train is whining low
While
here I hear only a lyrical breathing
and
the odd and oddly tuneful infant gurgle.
The
scent of the grandson’s crown
wafts
up. That’s when all preachments waft up too,
all
vanities, worries, to die their sudden deaths.
The Long and Short
Betty,
as always, was making doughnuts.
Why
would she stop, I supposed, even though
Her
husband had died two nights before?
The
general store would keep buying her stuff.
People
loved those doughnuts, plain as they were.
I
could tell she was cooking before I knocked
By
smelling the heat of her Fry-O-Lator.
I’d
known them forever. No storybook marriage,
But
she and Dale for the most part got on,
The
way old couples usually manage.
Grease-smoke
mixed with that wet dog odor
In
the woods, which signals we’ll soon get snow.
Two
flickers flushed from behind their trailer.
Dale
was suddenly gone. Here then gone.
I
pictured his walk, how he reeled like a sailor
After
a long-log rolled off a truck
Years
back, and turned both femurs to dust.
A
three-legged chipmunk ducked under a downed
Dead
hemlock. I watched a pigeon slip
Into
the loft of their buckling barn.
They
felt fitting, these varied signs that boded
Winter.
Mind you, I did like Dale,
And
would miss him all right. Yet I caught myself,
Surprised
and ashamed, in a sort of rehearsal
For
Betty of poignant recall and grief,
No
matter a small brook cheerfully chimed
A
hundred yards off, no matter the field,
Which
someone had planted with rye for cover
Through
the coming cold, looked green as spring.
Betty
called me inside. She was leaning over
Her
stove. She smiled and wept at once,
And
the tears fell into the bubbling basket,
Each
drop hissing and dancing inside.
Life
struck me abruptly as both long and short.
“They’re lively anyhow!” Betty cried.
