A girl sat reading
The Lives of the Saints. Her walk-
ing stick leaned at rest.
The seat next to her
was empty. The place was packed.
January sun
streamed in the windows.
Sometimes noisy rooms go qui-
et, like then, like now.
A girl sat reading
The Lives of the Saints. Her walk-
ing stick leaned at rest.
The seat next to her
was empty. The place was packed.
January sun
streamed in the windows.
Sometimes noisy rooms go qui-
et, like then, like now.
Low tide. Half in, half
out, the geese soak up the sun.
The cold, distant sun.
January one.
I get goosebumps in the wild
ecstasy of time.
On the last day of
the year the gray Bay shines like
wet cement. Really,
and not because I’m
depressed. It just looks that way.
In fact the simile—
gray Bay, slow drying
cement—is both ludicrous
and apt. Call it real.
I thought of tea. I
was on the last lap of a
cold walk to the Bay.
Nothing was on my
mind. Gulls rode the winds crying
their piteous cries.
I did stop once to
listen to my neighbor’s wind
chimes. New since Christmas.
You know you’re getting
somewhere spiritually
when the winter sun
pours out of the blank
side of a dockside warehouse.
Blankness in excess.
Of course you are no-
where in particular. You
stand there getting cold.
When alive, my wife
showed she was alive by fre-
quent changes of hair
color. She loved it
when other people did it.
The one with purple
hair sitting over
there in the sun, my heart stopped,
I thought of Toby.
What’s a minor po-
et to do now the Apo-
calypse has come? Rich
and poor more at odds
than before. Wonderful Earth
in revolt. Mankind
not kind at all. I
have survived my youthful cults,
just barely. What’s next?
Christmas leftovers.
As table companion,
Umberto Saba.
For the cheap diner,
for the yellow polenta,
immense gratitude.
I leave a big tip
for the nameless one, my age,
who knows what I like.
Well, it is Christmas.
Each time I get up, the cat
slinks into my chair.
A clear winter day.
Some urgency in the sound
of the roofer’s ham-
mers. Crisp. Stop and go.
Interrupted by silence.
Snow falls from a tree.