MARCONI BEACH
Surrounded by a division of gulls,
shrieking and yapping
like Confederates at Gettysburg—
my feet ecstatic in the muddy sand.
An ocean liner with laborious
elegance riding the water, my
imagination robust, putting me aboard
to walk the decks with a woman
who’s auburn hair actually does dance
in the breezy, hot air.
Remembering the boy in school
who was often admonished to avoid
the slightest hint of slothfulness—
“Good thing you never went along”
the woman says, taking off her summer
dress and going to lie on the cabin bed,
looking over my shoulder at the cornucopia
of stars the late night has produced, effortlessly.
A REVOLUTION, AFTER ALL
We talked politics so long and so hard
that we finally quit to concentrate
on the constitution of the sky, noticing
the buds on the trees growing, the sun
confidently starting to show itself.
We decided to cook slowly until days end
and toasted our wine glasses to the red
cardinals and Cuban doves who’d flown by our
windows, turning and soaring with the grace
and guile of jet pilots every revolution adores.
We put the political books back on the shelf
and went to bed and dreamed of tomorrow
which we believed would be a few degrees
better and allow us to sleep in late and in peace.
FAME LEAVING, CALLOUS TO THE CORE
if there weren’t famous people
who would feel neglected?
--Du Fu
At least fame, having
never paid a visit, won’t
get the satisfaction
pulling this on me.
At least in my lone night
boat I won’t be as lonely
as at a party, in a crowd
of star-struck devotees.
At least I won’t need
to account for my wisdom
or lack thereof, any stupidity
defended by my legions.
At least I won’t feel betrayed
by the cosmos, believing
no one understood whatever
genius I thought I was.
At least I won’t ever feel
so abandoned, such anguish,
I’ll disappear into the fog
grateful, quietly as a dragonfly.
A LETTER FROM A WAR ZONE
The letter is imaginary but the woman who wrote it is not:
I saw her on television, standing beside a brunt-out building,
waving as if she had seen a friend or a lover coming her way
after months of separation. In her letter she documents the travail
and tragedy but also mentions how sometimes after a shelling the light
will waft through the streets “like a thin blanket of magical honey”
and the moment a red cardinal appeared, claiming its part of the rubble.
My friend saw a red cardinal land and preen on the windowsill
of his hospital room, minutes before he was wheeled into surgery.
I’m waiting for a red cardinal too, confident it will come in my direction.
The letter ends “One day you’ll bring me chocolates and I’ll greet you
with roses”—I fold the letter and wedge it between the pages of a great
book, another author who tried to sneak in a handful of grace amidst
the divisions of sadness, doing his best with the only weapon he ever had.