New Poems

The Myth of the Grim Reaper

Have you seen it? The black hood and the scythe

creeping, hunched, spreading his smoky breath

through the cold room where family waits?

You'll never see it, though the living create

the fables and lore that Death will come

or the angels will call so we think some

outsider cloaked in dark upon a horse

or ray of God through clouds appears to force

us out. But have you sat with the hoarse bleats

and coughs as a body staining the sheets,

straining to do some hard last work, admits

he must do it himself? Have you seen it?

Once the lid is off, the body's a cup

holding the steam of ourselves leaking up.

Thirteen Facts About Paul

Paul's brother died. He was twenty-seven. Paul was thirty-three.

Paul comes to work but often leaves before noon.

If you walk in his office and he is crying

he'll pick up the phone and start laughing, saying, "that's too funny."

His face will be wet as a shipwreck.

Paul knows his brother was murdered but he doesn't know exactly how.

This keeps him awake to all hours.

The priest told Paul, "knowing, unknowing—it's all a cloud."

Paul thinks if there is a spirit world it's below the earth

because he'll suddenly feel tapping on his feet.

Under his desk, or standing at a streetlight, Paul taps back.

Paul got the elaborate tattoo on his foot

of his brother's colors and birth date

because the foot is the most painful place to pulse in the ink.

He sat in the front window facing Bleecker Street

as the crowd gawked and the artist leaned over his bony canvas.

For hours, Paul cried to the city about his brother.

Semiotics for My Father

What grief to learn

what I call stars

are suns on other planets,

that their names depend

wholly on proximity.

Like the woman I call mother

my father calls your mother.

Your meaning me.

Me being that great distance.