Gray Man

On the flat, hot sandy plot
designated two to five,
I picnicked with a man
not half my size.

And a gray man carefully traced the silver
mesh outline of the park. Patriot buttons
and a U.S. flag studded the band of his pork pie
hat. I meant to say hello, but he never met our eyes.
He stared past everything, at a lonely ocean
island that he alone could make out.
Though I've seen that island, hovering hidden
among streets and swings and endless
foothill conifers.

The gray man sat at a picnic table and drank
something from a canteen. Our busy sounds,
our happy act of sun and love and play, versus
his solitary, measured sipping.

The sun low, I packed up the little man
and strapped him in his stroller.
When I reached the edge of the fence,
the gray man had vanished. I'd expected him
to be there. I saw that island of ours, empty
and swept by blunt waves.

I walked home, pushed the little man
over the big hill of Walsh Street,
and pressed all ten
digits of you. You've become
a gray man too.

TV Night

Pristine blue ocean of light,
and our squishy beige ship
readies for sailing. The dog
a hot, fat worm buried by your hip.
I skate along slick fir planks
to prepare our rations. Clear wrapper
crackles. Kernels drum on microwave
carousel. I listen for slow popping,
and spaces between green seconds
linger------longer.
Suspension.---------Each
raindrop navigates years to plop
and dissolve into one wide puddle.

And we. Such a long way from head to
foot, from you to me, as far as from home
to holy land, east to west, sun to sun.
Between, such seas. Whole universes.
Yet I almost see us. Almost comprehend.

Your Own Good

How many times have I trapped you
My too-bright animal
My hurtling star
In metal shopping cages
In plastic bucket prisons
Behind white wooden bars.
I've pinned you, strapped you
Buckled
And wrapped you. I've squeezed
You to sleep in iron arms.

How often have I frozen you
With no, with stop, with sit
Though you know yourself
In motion--electric
Rush of limb and dendrite.

Your jagged stack of ragged, bitten
Books repeats its themes: submit.
Domesticate. Wall in. I begin
To agree. Yet when you floated
Next to me that first, best night
I told you: You belong
To you. You can become anything
You are.

I love your yes, your flash
Of eyefire, ruddy cheekflush,
Softspun hairlight, all flickering
When you run and run.
You need to burn.
I want to learn
To contain you
Without extinquishing.