Driving Home
a Coltrane solo’s
loping from
the stereo.
The GPS
keeps chiding, “Route
recalculating.”
The music fills
my head and chest.
I feel the sky
is opening.
Wrong turns are now
my specialty.
Everblue
It’s here, my yearly birthday bleed. The everblue
mood descends upon me—or ascends,
from depths of riches I don’t understand.
A darting shark among a shoal, my focus
shifts, to drinks outside last night with friends:
for Sandy, Fran, and Ann, champagne; and beer
for Gary and me. Cool eastern breeze that bore
our laughter, hell, as far as Iowa.
Epiphanies? Yes. Other people give
life meaning. Treat myself as friend (and realize
why I keep on typing fiend). Blue eyes
I got from Mom (from Dad, the gold explosions
near the pupils). Wish my darker sister
happy Mother’s Day, belatedly.
Island Saga
1
What’s happened on the island of your heart?
The queen has hanged herself?
The king’s torn out his eyes?
Your children scatter,
exiles smart enough to sense
a fate accursed,
the rout of free will,
frail spine snapped against a
grim alignment of the stars.
And yet they act.
They suffer, learn, and now return,
like slim shoots in the fields,
like truth that outlasts fact.
2
She drinks strong wine,
and rhythmic words she needs
transform her.
Sea and sky,
and she a maid escaped,
a smoking fortress leagues behind her,
sharks below.
She plies the rudder,
freed to drown,
not contemplating death,
not brave,
just spying land,
soul bared to what she’ll find.