Life Span

10 very short poems

Photo by Geetanjal Khanna on Unsplash

---

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.