THE BREAKS

To learn more about your new Kenmore
washer, break the plastic seal.
—from the manufacturer’s instructions

I’ve a friend who says, “Treat anything mechanical
as if it’s just about to break.”
I’ve a feeling           broken-hearted
he’s talking about himself
in relation to his ex-wife,
but I don’t tell him that. She called me break the news
just before she left him. “Breaking up” was her phrase,
as if we were all broken promise still in grade school.
“I’m leaving,” she said, “For good.” I pictured him exactly
where I knew he was at the time—in mid-schuss
breakneck on a mogul-filled downhill in Vail.
He wouldn’t be back for two days, and had no idea
it would be to a broken home. And then,
no note, on the kitchen table or anywhere.
No red box on the wall: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
BREAK GLASS.

Two weeks later we sat line break
in front of a ridiculous amount of beer.
I was trying, at that point, to explain to him
that humans didn’t invent weaving… breaking point
that it was an innovation of certain brightly colored,
long-beaked birds, and when we stumbled upon
the wonderful, twisted nests, we figured them out
by breaking them apart.
Something in him broke loose, I guess. I’d been talking
as if I could say anything groundbreaking
about love. In retrospect, he probably should’ve broke my nose,
but all he did was sit there, for the first time, slumped over
in a bar, and cry. “I looked everywhere,” he said,
“for a note.” Everywhere. He kept saying it. What’s the word?
What’s the word for one of those great big crashing waves?

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011

A BATTLESHIP EXAMINES ITS FAITH

I dream
towels, dust streams,
a downpour of talcum.
I dream arid fields of sorghum.
But down where I’m fattest: frogmen swimming
on wave-wings, stoking my belly with the kindling
of justice. Captain, I’m a billion-shot salute, but guns
aren’t made to pull their own triggers. The Baltic makes me run
until my sides buckle but won’t let me collapse.
I call this salt-soup Heaven, but perhaps
I’m misdirected. The angels
of my dreams never change:
unarmed and dry,
they fly.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011

THE DOG

The six of us look as usual but we are all dogs
Around that Christmas table of 1999. My sister
Carves with the concentration of a sculptor
Trying to free the angel from stone. This is usual.

My brother carries the turkey to table
Losing a wing. This is usual. My daughters
Discuss whether Handel’s Messiah or Christmas
Music from around the world should be played.

This is usual. I pour the water, spilling water,
My husband pours the wine with expertise. This is
Usual. What is not usual: a year ago, Christmas ’98,
We were fifteen, now we are six. Experiencing

The long table as more than half empty. We look
As usual; shellshock does not show on the face.
We strip flesh from bone. We pass the dressing.
We eat. We drink. The modern part of us understands

That the rest of the family will not arrive. It under-
Stands that the house is silent because no children
Play downstairs. That Santa will not come, that Baby
Jesus has grown up fast, that since last Christmas

He’s been crucified, has become God, Who has reverted
To Yahweh, Who is out to teach us a hard lesson: death,
Divorce, estrangement. But the dog. The dog part of us
Has its ears up. It listens for a familiar motor, listens

For the back door to open, listens for the familiar
Footsteps, listens for the voices downstairs. All through
Dinner the dog is poised to run and jump and lick,
The dog is about to go crazy with joy.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

YOUR VILLAGE

slipknot, aerosol

or invertebrate, a thing
spineless

drawn out in sections and rewired
to complete the circuit

hot light
in each alcove, insomniac
the green yellow eyes

of a cat, blinking
in the dark

nothing put to sleep.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

THE EX-WORLD

Death had seemed so abrupt to X,
like a TV show she loved being cancelled,
or a pet lipstick color discontinued.

Of course X knew these were minor examples!
Their minority let X think about death.
By now she’d lived through so many

new shows just a hue different from old ones
and new lipsticks causing a shade of mourning
for colors that would never be made again,

at least in her lifetime, she thought,
the end isn’t sudden at all—
why, it begins back with the first x-ing out.

Death wasn’t an ending, it was a transfer!
Cancellation by discontinuation,
she was crossing into the next world.

Disappearing through the border was
a bit like a passport check.
“What does the X stand for?”

the officer usually said at her customs-of-the-mind,
and she made up all sorts of names:
Example, Exonerate, Exfoliate.

Then the officer would point to the Exit
and watch her go. She seemed to dematerialize,
but instead made an entrance on the other side

in an alternate shade of her self.
X cared just a bit less about this world
each time some little thing she loved got crossed out.

Some tiny cells of her own disappeared
with the end of “Zoom Maroon” and “Toast of New York.”
Like Get Smart and The Avengers

her re-makes were never quite the same.
Yet fading piqued her curiosity:
Ex means examine, too,

each layer peeling off
its own thinny-thin translucency
like values of moonlight.

Which do you prefer, the sun or the moon?
Which one, LIFE or DEATH?
The thing clearly seen—or the thing in mystery?

Well, it’s time for mystery, X thought,
even though you’ve always moved past the spot
by the time you’ve marked it.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011
Tribute to Canadian Poets

ON THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF HIS WIFE’S DEATH

He thinks that time will heal. But this is fable.
He tries to call her friends. But is not able.
He wants to venture out. But is not stable.
Her photograph remains upon the table.

–from Rattle #35, Summer 2011