Like Christmas

 

We suspected he had guns,

which made things all the more

unsettling 

when he shouted at his wife

until the cruisers arrived.

Red and white lights 

flashed in our window

onto a living room wall

like Christmas

as he talked to the cops

in his driveway, arms crossed,

calm, measured as a diplomat.

A Moment When Everything Seems Alright.

 

My neighbors and I

have collectively strung 

thousands of lights 

to porches, posts,

and windowsills

in order to beat 

back the darkness 

in our hearts.

If I stare down

my street as dusk 

passes,

breathing deep 

unseasonably warm

November,

allow my mind

to become 

uncharacteristically

uncluttered,

everything seems alright,

which is a cool

feeling 

now and then,

all any of us wants,

really,

even when my

waking mind,

cluttered as it is,

knows better.

4th Street Bridge

4th Street traveling west curves through 

oak trees and houses, up and over Black River.

I have crossed this bridge

hundreds of times since childhood.

It's my empty pre-dawn 

route to work these days,

A few days ago, in still dark morning,

I thought I'd come back around

to see the full moon, corner of my eye, but 

it was bullshit, an illuminated window, 

top floor, in the riverside high rise.

The moon further west,

like being fooled by an old friend.

I reached for my coffee, and

approached the stoplight

certain only of uncertainty,

a wisdom born of bridges.

My Memory the Liar.

The evening sun shines through

backyard oaks at angles

difficult to understand.

A breeze creates strange shadows

on our lawn as blades blow

every direction at once.

I thought of geometry.

I think I got a "B" in that class

30 years ago, but

my memory is often a liar.

A fly circles my ankle.

I remember my teacher, Mr. Farmer,

and something about Pythagoras.

My white cat watches me

with lidded eyes from a shady spot

near the Buddha statue.

Pythagoras, Mr. Farmer, and I

create a kind of historic triangle

here on my lawn.

That grade must've been a "C".

A Truth About Loneliness

                                    for my brother.

When I moved to Colorado

the sky was the brightest 

blue I'd ever seen; 

crisp, cool, and lonely.

The mountains provided a 

semi-permeable edge

one went "into" or "through"

like madness.

My brother visited once, and we walked

miles over the foothills looking for

the film version of Tortilla Flat.

We found it near the University, 

and rewarded ourselves

with cheap beer and exhaustion.

Spencer Tracy was

brilliant. So was the lovely

Hedy Lamarr. Stepping outside 

after the film, I realized 

movies are liars, John Steinbeck 

is the truth, and my brother 

would leave soon. The sky, 

as always, was threatening

with its loneliness.

Juno

Even the night smelled like honeysuckle

with the wind out of the south just right. 

School had ended. Summer was limitless.

It would be a month before I had to undertake

the wholesale murder of Japanese beetles

for the sake of the daisies and 4 o'clocks.

After a long wait, news broke that 

NASA's space probe Juno was approaching Jupiter,

preparing to orbit the giant dozens of times.

I pictured a tiny craft circling, searching like 

beetles drowning in a bucket of water.

One night we crowded around the telescope 

just outside the streetlight pool at the driveway's end.

My son and a few of the neighborhood kids

were taking turns looking at the moon, then Jupiter.

One little boy, having spent a few moments looking,

lifted his head. "I think I saw an astronaut," he said

eyes wide, big smile, enjoying his exaggeration.

I bent to the eyepiece for another long look,

then nodded knowingly as if to verify his observation,

to verify a season of limitless possibilities.

We laughed as he ran off into the street

to catch up with his friends and the ridiculous freedom

that lives in the summertime darkness.

Fish Fry

The place became terribly crowded about 10 minutes after we arrived. We ordered fish dinners and settled into noise. My wife and son watched the Keno numbers on a TV across from them. They were looking for patterns from draw to draw, like card counting.

"There's your 7 again," she said.

"Ahh, the 22."

I watched the door as more and more people arrived. Most of them were older couples, but some were young. They were all hungry and a bit unsettled as they paced the room having small conversations with friends and acquaintances, looking for a table that wasn't there.

The oldest couple slipped quietly into seats unnoticed before a table was even clean. They both smelled like pipe smoke, warm vanilla soot. They both ordered decaf and fish, then waited in silence having said everything necessary 20 years prior to their arrival.

A middle aged woman smiled at me as I ate perch. She and her husband had split up in their patrol of the room, keeping a seasoned eye on the progress of patrons. I smiled back at her in awkward mid-chew, thinking, she'd slit my goddam throat to take this table. 

Let's just say I kept my eyes open, looking for patterns in the noise, unsettled in my own way, as my son ate shrimp like popcorn and devoted himself to Keno numbers as if he'd discovered a new religion.