The egg was breathing
so quietly you wouldn’t
have known it was alive.
No clouds appeared in
its immaculate atmosphere.
It was a belly in search of a buddha,
a featureless head, a round number.
It balanced on a single point
with far less effort than
a ballerina. After a while,
it got the idea that it was a bean,
& one day would open green wings
& lead the way to the sun, which
didn’t look entirely unattainable.
The strongest hand
couldn’t crush it.
Who’d have thought that warm center
it had always taken for a heart
had other plans?
The Origin of the Exclamation Mark
A gasper, a screamer,
a dog’s cock, say
the old type-setters,
frozen at point.
But it’s older than
type, old as a dried
stalk trembling on
the way to earth,
a mud-dauber tube
like a tuneless flute,
the trail of a slug
down the moss face
of a cliff, a severed
finger packed in ice,
a No. 2 pencil pocked
with toothmarks, a
snake made of sand,
a microphone hung
from the ceiling,
the fossilized thigh-
bone of an extinct
sauropod, a string
of drilled shells
used in lieu of
money, or a
gas flare on
an oil field
at night.
Legend
says: the word
joy written vertically,
in Latin, a big letter I
balancing on a
full belly.
Screw
O screw
with your fine thread
your bugle head
your shank
your sharp tip—
you with your disinclination to slip
have taught me all
I need to recall
about politics:
go left & get loose
go right & tighten
into place
like dutiful screws
but beware the quick fix
the stripped thread
the buggered head
of those who are too
truly screwed.
Cursor
This screen where I type is the only light
in my dark house
a fly walks up & down
& over the blinking cursor
last night I watched the sky for half an hour
& only saw two meteors
one text insertion point every 15 minutes
that’s no way to write
cursor is Latin: not one who curses
of course but one who runs
it’s the transparent sliding part
on a slide rule
a door disguised as a window
fooling only flies & stargazers
pick up your grave said Jesus
& follow me
Shark’s Tooth
From what tacky tourist trap did it come,
that keepsake, that ocean’s arrowhead?
I think my grandparents brought it back
from their one & only Carribean cruise.
It rode around in my pocket for a while,
a talisman luckier than a rabbit’s foot
or a saint’s ear. It was not much bigger
than a mole’s snout, but sharp, so sharp.
I imagined serried ranks, sierras,
& the circling fin, evil twin of the sail.
It was—I recall—a kind of off-brown,
the color of moldy leather or dried blood,
but shiny enough to serve as a mirror
for something not quite my reflection
but sharper than a shadow.
Acorns
The oaks have
dropped more acorns
this year than anyone
can remember. It’s
like walking on ball
bearings, except
sometimes they pop:
a cap comes off
& one blank face
gains a split. It
must be lonely
having the only
mouth. Do you take
a breath? Do you
invent eating?
Do you look for
another broken soul
& improvise some
kind of minimal
kiss? But wait
a while: soon
everyone will awake
& turn & stick
a yellow tongue
into the earth.
Book Match
Back when I smoked, as the son of a writer
& a librarian, the book match
was like a brother to me.
Once torn from the book
it couldn’t go back, while smoking made me
an exile from the air.
We both had a tendency to lose our heads.
I was skinny as a heron’s leg;
a book match isn’t even thick enough
to qualify as a match stick.
It’s a minimal page
with just enough room for one word
beginning with a lower-case L
& ending with incandescence—
a holy word, a profane word,
a word for (forgive me) a kind of match.
It’s so worn out from overuse
I hesitate now to let it pass my lips.
Toenail Paring
“But a toenail paring isn’t a body.” —Robert Hughes
A toenail paring isn’t a body. Nor is it a boat or a barrel stave or a C-section of—Lord help us—the crescent moon. It isn’t a smile or a parabola, a cradle or a wing. It seems as if should have age rings, like a tree stump or an artist’s conk, but no: it is as featureless as an eggshell, & its curl is the curl of a fetus. I am still always a bit surprised that I have managed to grow such an excrescence, & reluctant to part with it. Where to dispose of it—trash? Compost? Toilet? Like a shed antler, it doesn’t quite belong anywhere. I picture a lonely atoll at the edge of the North Pacific Gyre where all the world’s toenail parings eventually end up—long curved driftrows at the high-tide line.
*
Thanks to Marly Youmans for the Hughes quote.
That Button
You were no less terrifying
for having been
entirely fictitious.
You were big & round
& very, very red.
I saw you whenever I squeezed
my eyelids shut
& faced into the sun,
practicing for the flash.
I worried that Reagan
might mistake you for
a jelly bean—
groggy from a nap,
groping for candy
he’d blow up the world.
However it happened, I knew
it was only a matter of time.
You were, after all, made
to be pressed,
shaped to fit the finger,
even if only for the briefest
of momentous occasions,
like an engagement ring
for a shotgun wedding.
Yet you wouldn’t have been
anything fancy,
just molded plastic.
When finally pressed,
you would’ve clicked twice—
no third time
for the charm.
Stone
The stone isn’t dull;
it’s just too shy to shine.
The stone isn’t still;
it’s just practicing an extreme economy of gesture.
The stone isn’t mute;
it’s just making up its mind how to begin.
When I lived in a glass house
it was my most honored guest.