From the 49th Parallel…Bellingham, Washington
So far north here, sometimes
it feels like we’re teetering
on the very edge of the Earth
and into the region the ancient maps
called Terra Incognita.
So far north here, sometimes
it feels like we’re teetering
on the very edge of the Earth
and into the region the ancient maps
called Terra Incognita.
The deputy in slacks and knee-high boots heaves
a weighty door—neglect, injury, violence.
They’ve come to lead a prayer service, she tells forty
females wearing thin orange uniforms. They
scatter round a large, cool room—walls empty
of all color. A resident standing in her four-bed section,
in the barn.
I see a greenhouse.
End of the reign for
a pile of rotting frames
that have served out a century
at least,
A single silent
Tear hangs
On your cheek
And we pretend
Not to look
At each other
Dusk again, and clouds, the clouds: fluffed-up balls
with wispy tails, every shade of orange and gray
An old man nicks his chin shaving and hears
his dead father sigh, sees his father’s hand
search the cabinet for the fat styptic pencil
that got dumped in the trash fifty years ago.
It was the kind of news should come
in a light blue envelope with French stamps
and my name and address in cursive, in black ink
or typed on an Olivetti with keys in need of cleaning,
I’ve always wanted to write a poem about the wind
doing what wind does: speaking
in leaves, shaping
sails on horizons, lifting
the pappi of dandelions into sunlight
over parking lots, or purring
in the cracks of shut rooms,
wind at the shift of seasons screaming,
My father dipped me in milk gravy
so thick and velvety I wanted to play
with it, mash it into the palm of my left hand.
He offered cathead biscuits before
school on dark January days after the
Christmas hangover. It was almost enough.
Gradually, the rock bands of the Sixties
announce their final concert tours
as their members turn wistful and eighty.
They try to salvage that early glory
one more time for us, the loyal fans
who have followed their tabloid story
and will pay anything to see them perform