Small Craft Warnings Collection
Published in Small Craft Warnings (Swarthmore College), 1999, 2000
Season (1999)
It gets dark fast this time of year
the old man behind me said as
we moved together backwards
approaching the city center
We hate darkness, I thought
especially that which comes early
We hate rising in it and retiring in it
seeing light only through panes
begrudgingly
We hate summer too, we say,
the heat that leaves us sweating
slouched on platforms
fanning ourselves slowly
In winter we are only death at our desks
Pushing white paper around
The trees have been brown too long we yawn
Spring spring we chant, looking forward
to that which is warm, colorful
Searching for tiny purple buds edging the path
from the station we point and
say there’s one excited energized
by daylight we earned
we saved for so carefully
Close (1999)
In the heavy heat of almost summer we walked without destination,
city block by city block, roaming the interior of our neighborhood.
North south east west we walked pavement lying flat or cracked
in need of replacement in places or shifted like mismatched lips.
Looking up through sodden air I noticed the sky still blue,
daytime with the lights turned out,
saw the clouds move in bunches surrounded by this strange night blue,
The starless sky has clarity without light, I thought.
Processing in this lightless light we entered alleys,
saw white roses spilling out over the tops of fences,
looked up at your old window, watched the hyacinths growing
From a flower box outside a rowhouse door.
Entering and exiting smells, the flowers, exhaust, the bodies passing,
restaurant food cooking, the garbage in dumpsters rotting,
snug in the humid air, the airless air,
passing through it slowly, as it required,
we walked the middle of streets,
looping around behind buildings standing straight
or crouching beside lampposts above blacktop,
returning to the same conclusions again and again.
We crossed at lights, stop signs, when we wanted to in between.
We talked, pointed at places we knew.
We walked in silence
moved further into our neighborhood,
inside the heat, circling the center,
peering in to what is hot about heat.
Lights, garish convenient store lights,
Sirens, car alarms, voices from tables
defined our small exchange,
our purposeless journey.
Christmas Poem
For Mom and Dad
You do not know about
the lights on Rittenhouse Square
the way none of us saw them coming
and a few of us suggested they were a miracle
They hover in the trees-multi-colored spheres
I search to see if they line the entire park
My heart feels all there is to feel
when one is overwhelmed
by excess, but still wants more
No, you do not know about
the lights on Rittenhouse square
or my throat gone tight as it does
by the silliest things
the moon in a sliver or
perfectly round and orange
the bus coming when I want it to
an arm's smooth stroke through water
when, in that first feeling moment
I think of telling it
of how to tell someone about it
I think of telling you about it
Maybe I will forget to tell you
about the lights on Rittenhouse Square
How they remind me of everything
and nothing at once
how they seem to be like small planets
I can imagine reaching for
to cup in pale hands
How they take my eyes in their possession
pulling them upward
pushing heat through my chest
like hot water through pipes
revealing for a second
life turning slowly
dangling from something a
as fragile as a branch
Ferris Wheel (2000)
The ferris wheel across the bay
was spectacular at night.
I could not detect its movement
from the dock where we swayed
in the tumultuous wind we marveled at,
were slightly afraid of.
I held hope that it was something great
to see moving slowly, consistently,
something so perfectly round and
brilliantly lit.
The man who was here
a few days ago
was the first I heard mention it.
Pointing a broken telescope its way, he said
Let’s see if we can catch that ferris wheel.
My ears perked up instantly,
not caring at all for broken telescopes
you said were broken your entire life.
It was the words ferris wheel that caught my ear.
I did not see it until three days later,
at night,
with raw eyes, without magnification.
Surprising myself at feeling sad
and alone seeing the lights so far away,
feeling the wind again blowing hard,
knowing all the miles of ocean and beach
darkened and deserted were close,
the families I do not know by the dozens
coming and going.
The waves have always brought forth in me this
precious sadness
Longing thoughts of a perfect like, b
ig things with smallness beside them.
A house by the sea.
I have had to take deep breaths, hold my throat tight,
Emotion matching the tireless
disappearance and return of the bay.
The ocean is a thing that doesn’t change,
yet is always changing
nags, whispers in ears again and again
There is something else here, something else,
Either surrounding, holding us up to float, or
hitting hard, salt water waves breaking, or receding
skulking out to sea,
draining the bay into thick mud,
Small puddles, leaving
tiny flies that sting or the
worms that you pointed out,
poking their heads up,
first one then hundreds,
visible from the light
of the house behind us. PASTE POEM HERE
