Baptism The bathroom tap is only running scalding water. For just a second, I feel the urge to cup my hands inside that dangerous stream. Isn't it strange when we fragile humans go looking for pain?
Sweet Ceremony During my childhood, the only vending machine on the rez was located in the jail. When our diabetic father was home and sober with extra coins in his pocket, he'd buy us candy and soda from that machine. He'd give us sugar like a bird feeding its little birds. That's how we learned that a child can starve with a bellyful of food. Our father didn't mean to harm us. He wanted to bless and save us, and that vending machine's body and blood were the only Eucharist that he knew.
Amherst
When I visited Emily
Dickinson's house,
I marveled at the small
desk where she wrote
her poems. Did her back
hurt after long hours
of work? I was surprised
by the smallness
of her white dress.
She was so slender.
And then I realized
that she was alive
when Crazy Horse
was alive. History
is always closer
than we think.
Exile The diver loves his oxygen debt. The insomniac loves his unrest. The rabbit loves the eagle's nest. I still love the ones who left.
Father Song My father's ghost, like my father, is shy and quiet and doesn't believe in himself. He wants to haunt me but he can only enter my home if I write him into my poems.
Prophecy The salmon have built mansions at the bottom of every ocean. Millions of rooms. Millions of rooms. The salmon have sent ambassadors to live among Indians. Millions of salmon. Millions of salmon. Those ambassadors are teaching us how to breathe water
Honor Song for Diane
In your embrace, I time-travel
back to that two-person chapel
where you first unraveled
and unlaced me with your grace.
Inherited Wealth This sleeve of saltines and glass of water on my beside table remind me of my father and how he'd eat whenever the nightmares woke him. Are there Saints of Midnight Hunger? If so then you should know that I'd pray to them.
Crisis of Faith Of course, the photos and videos of Sasquatch need to be blurry and distant. Nobody wants to be certain that their monster is only myth. Nobody wants their miracle to only be metaphor.
Life Span When I die, I hope that my sons are too elderly to carry my coffin.
This 'short poem' collection, like the last short poem collection you posted here, are each and every one overwhelmingly marvelous; and as a whole, just overwhelming. Thank you so much...I was told after a reading once, that the audience did not know how to respond to my 'short poems', preferring the longer ones apparently.
[In my youth when it was not a popular sport, soccer was my forté...short sprints my gift] Still, I obviously hold that somewhat critical 'short poem' comment and can only marvel at these short poem pieces of your heart now set free, to wander the halls of your dreams and wishes.
I was hungry, and opened this as I got my lunch, and read as the burrito in my hand got cold.
As always, wonderful. Thanks