by JS Gilbert
I once grieved beneath insistent deadlines.
Looming, sharp, pointy expectations brushing
my head. The world holding its breath
between life and death as if I held
the cutters, trembling, over the blue
no red no yellow wire. But what have I
ever so urgently accomplished that couldn’t
have waited one more? Waited for a second
opinion, for Christ’s return, for waffles,
for forests to reclaim the Earth for
my fingers circling the length of your
back as we fall asleep?
If,
in the midst
of your holiday roast—
ascending, beforked,
from your holiday plate
to your holiday mouth—
receive from me a vexing
imperative to ‘Meet
Christmas!’, please
remember that I
and technology are disequally
fickle and imprecise.
Of regardless I do
so wish you both
a lifelong and joyous
acquaintance.
Why must everything
be a thing? Why
does every leaf-fall end
in catastrophe, every
botherant molehill rise
to become a Homeric
mountain we scale again
and again and again when
the wind is so welcoming,
the sun so undemanding, the
clouds so driftingly unconcerned
by our dwindling peaks while we
ignore the view?
As I understand
it, my purpose
is to capture,
in passing, this
construction worker giving
another a long-stemmed
wildflower, freshly plucked,
presented, accepted,
rushingly shoved
into a shirt pocket between
shifts, all draped
in safety-first yellow.
It all happened so quickly.
This bus, this love, this
rumpled weed.
I want to sleep
near a fire of
drift
wood, dredged
from a withered sea.
Towers fallen, sapped,
life picked clean
of hope,
heritage scattered
along barren earth,
broken and waiting.
In the potential of Dawn’s
desolation comes the Stranger
who names my name and
sings my loss and whispers
the Truth that didn’t burn.
My father took
the Barry Manilow
records; my mother
took me.
I was his first son,
yet he, I believe,
never once
made me cry.
sunrise is my favorite when
Creation stir-steps
atop wavetips to sink
its toes in sand before we
bound from slumber
take eagerful brokeful leaps
into the world
we cannot know
Columbia House introduced me to Gerald Levert
in 1991, before methamphetamines replaced cassette
tapes as the drug of choice for nice, Iowa boys.
I couldn’t say no to the nice lady on the phone,
and to this day freeze in the face of the entire
service industry. Servers, cashiers, mechanics all
want to know where I want to do and suddenly I’m
that fox we passed on I-75 caught in a rictus
of terrified indecision, knowing that things have
drastically changed, things are bigger, things are
faster, and I do not understand except that they
expect an answer, a crossing, at their convenience.
Breathable Comfort and Style
I don’t trust men
who don’t wear socks. Could
it be the hint of villainy
or my envy at not being
able to pull it off? Or
because the shamefill, shattered
part of me that so profusely
sweats through missteps and debts,
bedclothes and socks, wonders
where, exactly, they hide
their guilt?