They say cats bring gifts, wriggling, to
our doorsteps because they don’t trust
us to feed ourselves and so we should be
thankful for snakes, voles, moles, and mice
carried haughtily up the steps but
I’m not the one who falls off the bed.
Still I couldn’t think of a damn
thing to write. Couldn’t catch the bird
in the bush despite the pen in my hand
as he sauntered toward the screen,
robin thrashing in his jaws, and said,
through a mouth-full of feathers,
‘Well?’
I don’t know
what
angelic aerodynamics were involved
in sending Christ from his Father’s
right hand to Mary’s womb
but when my son took
off toward his grandparents at
140 knots my heart leapt
to follow with stubby wings
which floundered
in his wake and I
wasn’t even sending him
to be crucified
only coddled by flight
attendants who knew
exactly who
he was.
They were hoodled
against
the frost and crossed
against
the light
across
the path of the officers
who—
jackets unzipped
—pulled to the side,
searched pockets
and coats for
evidence
they weren’t white
enough to saunter
through the cold.
When our office switched from recyclable
cups to sustainable mugs my boss
said she never pours tea into coffee
mugs because coffee was a thoughtless
guest who never, really, leaves, like
there’s always one sock left under
the couch to be found six months later.
I shrugged because I’d never found so
much as a quarter beneath the cushions.
Jesus, too, warned against pouring new
wine into old wine skins lest they burst
and stain the carpet but my coffee
mug has never
yet
cracked.
There are few opening lines more pretentious than
‘I have a hot tub’—maybe ‘I don’t own a TV’ or
‘I read The Economist’—but it’s true and anyway
it’s for my wife’s fibromyalgia and it was on sale
and there’s no other way to explain the leaves that
become trapped and float unnoticed to the surface
sink beneath the jets lost in the flotsom to wind
between our toes and lay at the bottom of this
chemical bath dying as we relax color fading like
an astronaut without oxygen who can’t keep her
eyes open as the warnings flash 15 10 5 3 percent
red through her eyelids but she’s long since succumbed
to an isolated slumber and slipped down to death to
wind between God’s toes, a leaf in the filter but
he still knows her name.