Month: July 2021

By which we mean—
what happens without warning 
and stops almost as quickly 
as it comes. A story
the size of a postcard, or 
even just a few sentences.  
A warning announced 
by short, metallic beeps, 
drones on the radio. A light-
house beam sweeping over rocks
and water. Water and more 
water—rushing through fields
and towns, crumpling solid
brick walls and buildings 
in its wake. A sudden flood,
and strings of silos on their side. 
The shiny BMW that cost
as much as a house, dangling
from one end of a bridge.

Early April, when it was given
free to our stewardship on arbor
day: thin sapling— out of a box 
with many others, sorted 
into piles on cold
park pavement: mostly 
apple or pear, and just 
so many
of persimmon. 
                            But we knew
it was persimmon we wanted,
reminiscent of mabolo
in the summers of our youth:
its ruddy color and velvety skin,
its orange-brown, puddling flesh 
when ripeness is only mouthfuls
away from rot. 
                                Whatever the world
here might overlook or consider
too difficult to adapt, we want
to harbor, knowing from our own
struggle to make it through
the seasons how some things
take a bit more care, more
watchful tending. 

Salt calls to water.
          Water calls to the moon.
The moon's whips consume
          old amputations in the blood.
And blood is only another 
          name for hunger, or that
which calls to the beautiful 
          stars. It wants to adorn  
itself with them—as teeth,
         or brilliant lights, emerald 
on the edges of foam.
        Water parts to let
the body in. What a height
       it's fallen from!  It can't
help opening in surprise
       or shock or wonder.

I never heard her play, the ghost
performer who underwrites the name

I'm given at birth: and so
when I step into it, I'm expected

to train for the world as if the only
life was a life of music. I put on

fingerless gloves. It's lonely in the middle
of the platform where the instrument

opens its chest and the hammers begin—
blows release little balloons: chromatic,

ascending into the cold.  I learn to sing
the names of notes, kneeling my fingers

against yellowed keys. But I yearn
for outside light— the colors of coats

burning in winter against ice; rust on the bars
and chains of swings in the park. Slides

on which to practice hurtling down 
then learning to land on your feet.  

When between two and three in the morning we were waked with my maids crying out, “Fire, fire, in Markelane!” So I rose and looked out, and it was dreadful; and strange apprehensions in me, and us all, of being presently burnt. So we all rose; and my care presently was to secure my gold, and plate, and papers, and could quickly have done it, but I went forth to see where it was; and the whole town was presently in the streets; and I found it in a new-built house that stood alone in Minchin-lane, over against the Cloth-workers’-hall, which burned furiously: the house not yet quite finished; and the benefit of brick was well seen, for it burnt all inward, and fell down within itself; so no fear of doing more hurt. So homeward, and stopped at Mr. Mills’s, where he and she at the door, and Mrs. Turner, and Betty, and Mrs. Hollworthy, and there I stayed and talked, and up to the church leads, and saw the fire, which spent itself, till all fear over. I home, and there we to bed again, and slept pretty well, and about nine rose, and then my wife fell into her blubbering again, and at length had a request to make to me, which was, that she might go into France, and live there, out of trouble; and then all come out, that I loved pleasure and denied her any, and a deal of do; and I find that there have been great fallings out between my father and her, whom, for ever hereafter, I must keep asunder, for they cannot possibly agree. And I said nothing, but, with very mild words and few, suffered her humour to spend, till we begun to be very quiet, and I think all will be over, and friends, and so I to the office, where all the morning doing business. Yesterday I heard how my Lord Ashly is like to die, having some imposthume in his breast, that he hath been fain to be cut into the body.
At noon home to dinner, and thence by coach to White Hall, where we attended the Duke of York in his closet, upon our usual business. And thence out, and did see many of the Knights of the Garter, with the King and Duke of York, going into the Privychamber, to elect the Elector of Saxony into that Order, who, I did hear the Duke of York say, was a good drinker: I know not upon what score this compliment is done him. Thence with W. Pen, who is in great pain of the gowte, by coach round by Holborne home, he being at every kennel full of pain. Thence home, and by and by comes my wife and Deb. home, have been at the King’s playhouse to-day, thinking to spy me there; and saw the new play, “Evening Love,” of Dryden’s, which, though the world commends, she likes not. So to supper and talk, and all in good humour, and then to bed, where I slept not well, from my apprehensions of some trouble about some business of Mr. Povy’s he told me of the other day.

fire fire
burn my brick

live like some cut
in the body

a good drinker-up
of every love

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 19 June 1668

We'd be shoveling 
dirt at dusk, after 
the last of the mourners 
depart. Pulling up nets 
filled with ripple and jolt, 
hoping for enough. 
Tunneling through a crowd, 
its pulse lined with smoke 
and cries, looking for an exit. 
Fugitives. Leftovers of war; 
trophies or spoils. Gifts 
to cruel gods—chained to rock, 
bound in water. In another life 
we'd be burnished and striped. 
Separated. Weighed and marked. 
A teat in the mouth of someone's 
child. We'd be the sepia-stained 
blank in the ledger that survived.