I call his right name
but the decades, and headphones,
inter me to him.
☯
Big band swing music,
hot and cold like my bedroom,
one excuse to smile.
☯
Any fish today? I ask,
the two of them, with their rods,
trudged to the shelter.
☯
To think that, somewhere
sun shines, is to imagine
ice over Ni’ihau.
☯
Train through the wet night,
in the glass I find brown strands
left in my mustache
☯
Power out, Tukwila,
businessman flips umbrella;
he sits singing softly.
☯
The soul in the wheelchair–
and there is always a soul–
wins sprint with the train.
☯
That one Motown song,
still so good, I don’t regret
not knowing the name.
☯
A radio tape,
Toronto after the war,
matched wail and foghorn.
☯
The misbound book,
impervious to any
of my deeper sighs.
☯
Breeze through my left hand,
forty-five years has it traveled
to greet these fingers
☯
The red traffic light
steadfast, far from the island
and its damp footprints.
☯
Top to bottom: fog,
one silent elevator,
one figure murmurs.
☯
Hard-won Internet!
My gateway to planet Earth–
now I can turn my back.
☯
To say “Reaching hands!”
branched from those cherry trunks
ignores their claws.
☯
He cleans his nostrils
with a grey t-shirt, sniffing,
Beatles on his chest.
☯
Slightly-scuffed chalkboard,
almost every letter left
from last night’s dinner.
☯
She’s a writer, too,
a strange country, she calls ours,
then she’s gone upstairs
☯
Two overdue bills
all praise due to bankruptcy,
I’m not in the shit.
☯
Everyone afraid
to talk to each other, but
I thought of the fog.
☯
Did they empty trash
last night? He lost his partial
and he stoops to dig.
☯
“Hate Free Zone!!” –red sign
…but then, as Jonathan says,
you must ask the heart.
☯
