Fishing

I remember going fishing with Opa;
Drove to the bait shop.

We bought a styrofoam cup of death row worms.
Used death, made more death.

Mass populated a five gallon bucket—
Frantic rainbow trout—

Until all colors bled into each other,
Suffocating out

Clear, clean life; turning the water yellow-brown
Like a smoker's teeth.

Then all light and scent, like childhood finger paints,
Smoothed into deep brown.

Except black eyes staring through the pungency
Of trout genocide.

Opa takes the fish and scales it down to size,
Throws the guts to worms.

Juxtaposition

I had to go to the store –
buy a pumpkin pie for my son's preschool event –
got in the car to drive home,
listened to National Public Radio.

Iris Chang committed suicide
on Wednesday – a shot to the head;
grandparents escaped China during WWII
oppression.

Her husband and two-year-old child alive.

My rear-view mirror held the gaze of my youngest –
two-and-a-half.
NPR played a requiem –
allowed me to sit with it.

Later the children ate pumpkin pie.

Holy Sonnet XIV by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Gravity

a cinquian

Rainfall –
as a zillion
suicides eroding
the landscape of community
wellness.

The Marionette

The children never noticed the hands above,
deftly moved,
surgical merriment
through manipulated sutures.
A meticulous operation,
a miraculous art:
the lifeless raised to life.

sacrament

broken, bland,
bread between molars

then sweet juice
of crushed grapes

a cleansing

A Poem by Czeslaw Milosz

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

A Poem by George Herbert

Love III

Love bade me welcome yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

A Poem by Madeleine L'Engle

Temper My Intemperance

Temper my intemperance, O Lord,
O hallowed, O adored,
My heart's creator, mighty, wild,
Temper Thy bewildered child.
Blaze my eye and blast my ear,
Let me never fear to fear
Nor forget what I have heard,
Even your voice, my Lord.
Even you Word.