The Tightrope Worker

    Angel in the velvet moon
    I cannot catch your eye
    you prance such steeples full of fun
    your golden scissors two are one
    above a deadly sky

    unlike below where goad is gain
    yours no fear of slip
    fatality but finality
    cast off with charmer's quip

    your high dance begs fear of fail
    pure to the joy pursue
    O hurry down
    teach your weave to us
    wink on us anew

    end is only end itself
    whatever you chance to do


     Swinging with Heather

    The laughter that fun-curdles your tummy
    turns your sky forever into my love lap
    will always own the stretch of clear blue
    you've learned to seek
    with your head thrown back
    against the wind
    yours is this everlasting gem
    to tell the world you better be a better place
    than he has lived this past century
    as with your smile
    a sway pendant of truth today
    my tear-dusted face
    suddenly knows
    we have already done as much
    for you as we can
    and what you must find yourself now is unlearned
    the opening to those whom else madness
    I must trust will swing you
    half so well as us


     Poppy Is Dead
     For Christopher

    We explained to him
    something might enter to a sleeping bird
    catch one wing in a corner
    pin him unsuspecting in a cage corner
    where his towel had not been responsibly drawn
    rip out a socket there cleanly
    shearing feathers about
    before there was even time to cry out
    in the night
    shit happens
    thin bird blood could seep out
    noiseless before we knew it
    something escapes
    something inside him sated
    into the darkness of his life
    unaware while the bright plumage left
    folded slowly in upon itself breathless
    like he found it still this morning
    so coldly
    he packed all the feathers he could find
    in the one best candy box
    and beneath his high rope
    hung from the useless old split oak by the studio
    beneath her spread root he dug him deep
    a cover with the finest granular glass around
    and from the swing circling above
    smiling overall he cried
    rest down there all of you
    your crazy peace


     A Farewell to Arms

    In the dreary Idaho winter
    a man at the one grocery store
    there in Ketchum
    gave me a lead pipe scraper and told me
    you're still young enough
    you can maybe probe him
    in this blizzard we're having
    the great man lay somewhere near
    the back cemetery
    across from Baldy Mountain
    so he can watch the skiers
    cosseted by two small cedars

    I went the worst day the worst winter in years
    six-foot ice drifts covered the stones
    you brought one up
    flat slabs impossible to read
    names all frosted
    I chipped and picked layer after layer
    double-blind sweat and sleet
    double-blind fighting the challenge
    be strong
    I said
    like he wanted me to be
    true cool in adversity
    for hours slab after slab till finally
    one came up ILLER followed by INGWAY
    through the ice

    I got a picture to prove to you
    back at the hotel
    my wife wanted to know
    was his middle name Killer
    no Miller
    I said
    I think
    collapsing both of us in love
    dead to the world


     Ingénue

    In the days before girls
    when they needed a part
    like in Shakespeare
    I was always the one
    lithe and lissome schoolboy chosen
    nor was I
    lost for performance
    in fact I put my woman picture
    on my desk signed it
    With Love From Beatrice
    so convincing all
    agreed I had some
    sumptuous girlfriend
    this got serious later
    when dressed in cancan fop
    it got out the hometown rotogravure
    look that's a star there fussing up
    our boy's black garter belt backstage on Broadway
    imagine my father's relief
    unbounded joy
    when he found me enthralled
    peeping on our nice neighbor lady
    undressing one Friday night
    with her upright nabob
    all sweet to love her


     Dancing Class

    Every winter Friday night age of ten
    regular as rain
    we went to the club on Front Street
    to learn the waltz fox-trot and Lindy hop
    I was in love
    I read the Bible before going
    to be good enough for her
    she had lustrous black hair
    wore a black velvet dress with white trim
    and smiled as if she
    knew something more than I did
    even when she really didn't

    later when I danced Broadway
    I discovered
    women sweat
    never smile in practice
    and there is no lucky spot dance
    where if you are there when the music suddenly stops
    you will get a prize
    contrived by our mothers

    it was best of Broadway
    you had already had
    true love
    love of the purest kind
    love of the moon and the stars
    young love
    that can last all of you
    a lifetime


     Honeymoon

    Our flock of white doves always fly
    a perfect union
    except once a year in late March
    when the river herring run
    they break formation to fend for themselves
    diving the water in a frenzy
    feeding on anchovy from a distance
    you can see them hone and strike prey
    with astounding accuracy
    as once fishing off Papeete
    on my honeymoon
    the captain watched
    through binocs to spy
    a pelican dive
    and knew right off there
    that was the place
    and we chased over ocean a mile to catch
    a deadly peck mark still on its side
    a baby dolphin who turned
    the most beautiful colors
    of the rainbow
    dying
    there in the boat
    my wife four months pregnant crying
    as we watched
    the shivers came slowly to an end
    in the warm sun off Papeete
    just like that marriage
    twelve years later


     The Liberation

    She was always there with her smile
    no matter what I needed
    or took to her for process
    no matter what had to be done
    when she had her place nearby
    we always talked of her children
    the little boy was eight
    and always hid behind the counter
    from me and my smile
    imagine my surprise today when
    Adrienne came out from behind all those boxes
    in her new place
    to smile at me with a big embrace
    the benefit of her magnificent breasts
    a kiss that could launch a lifetime
    it was like the GIs reception in Paris in WWII
    and when she said that little Luis
    was eighteen now
    into music
    and you should see some of the
    unbelievable stuff he brings
    into my kitchen
    he calls girlfriends
    I knew for sure then what a wonderful
    woman she had been since I last saw her
    all these years


     Pitchfork

    We would lie on the grass in the dark
    after the luminous fireflies
    in September when
    school was about to begin
    shooting stars were angels' frolic
    he said and lightning their hunger pains
    in central Pennsylvania
    lying on your back with your own father
    looking up was the best place
    the best place in the whole wide world
    to see them as light traveled faster than sound
    right there where you could clearly see it
    could count the seconds between flash
    and thunder multiply by this magic factor and find
    how miles distant was any storm so you
    would always be safe from lightning

    even today I wake up
    trying to count a storm way out over the Pacific
    trying to judge her distance
    recall a factor that won't arrive anymore
    there is no lightning synapse

    strikes come not from a distance
    another close friend today
    one after another suddenly
    gone


     Sushi

    On a clear flying day
    after the grape harvest
    I walk alone in peace to the river
    at flood tide
    overhead young Japanese
    airline pilots are practicing
    takeoffs and landings at our small airport

    when they make their turn and circle overhead
    I note beneath their wings
    a red square
    no cherry spot or rising sun
    their noise remains frightful then
    disappears over the mountain where
    for a time it is quiet with the soft lap
    of morning water
    a few fishermen quietly tethering bait

    these pilots are neighbors
    we play bocce ball together
    eat sushi for their three months of training
    each perfects here before
    going home to bigger things
    leaving me to wonder why
    at my age I still look up at their silver wings
    and scared yet
    cease to remark
    to wife and child
    the color shape noise and recognition
    of what all of us once
    were taught to be afraid
    and watch out for