Book o’ Verse

Lying in bed
scooping a little more sleep
into my bowl, like soup
until the soup goes cold
and starts to overflow
onto the table.
There’s the metal
of the ladel and it clinks
as a thin carrot wedge
rotates past
following the current
toward the table edge.

Twee birds, rumbling boat horns,
rough timber movement
rolled up for the night
into a living room carpet spiral
with socks and cat toys,
spoons, string, lost chopsticks.
Leaned sideways through the timeline,
bending toward a corner wall.
And then shook out at new light.
Dropping like 6 am jacks
onto the hardwood floor.

Jane won’t eat pears. No matter the context.
Stranded on Pear Planet.
Attacked by toothy pears.
Armed with only a pear fork.
Peckish.
Oh, she’ll kill ’em. Oh sure.
She can be savage.
But she won’t eat the flesh or drink the juice.
And she doesn’t want to talk about it.

They went driving in the rain.
They watched it fall down
on jelly-eyed twenty-eight-years-olds in gold paisley coats,
side-burned thirty-seven-year-olds in suspect camping gear,
fit fifty-year-olds wearing thick, graying furs plucked from cardboard boxes.
Early on, almost at the very first beat,
the rhythm section took their jackets off.
Red shirt, tan shirt. Suspenders. Brown towels in easy reach.
About an hour later, the piano player followed suit,
folded his coat up neatly, leaned over,
laid it to rest during the drum solo.
And now here they are — the whole gang.
They’re lighting flat matches in dry marble corners.
Thigh-high boots over too-bare skin.
Balds heads, stylized facial hair.
Then a busload of high school band kids
hauled up from San Diego
pours out all over the sidewalk.
Clarinet players. Trumpets players. Sax.
And the aged. And the infirm.
Oxygen tanks.
Wooden legs.
All rolled in to hear
some jazz sincere
on a wide stage.

They’re building a flock of geese
out by the base.
For six months now
they’ve been working on it,
piece by piece
sun, wind, rain.
First came the bones.
Then the organs, the muscles.
Fat and flesh.
Last week they put on
a soft undercoat of feathers.
Then beaks.
(Honk.)
And I was like:
“wow, these really are starting to look
like geese.”

I remember frogs --
feeding them, caring for them
pressing that spot on
the base of their spines...

Small frogs, caught by the creek
cupped for a moment, captive, fluttering
released
open-hand.

Huge store-bought bullfrogs
kept in shaded back-of-garage aquariums.

I don't remember naming them.
But I do remember
holding them close
looking down

their slimy skin
soaking up
against my shirt

and it wasn't gross at all.

Put it in a box and bury it
by the side of the house
with a few friends, a eulogy.
Soft voices and a
turning embrace.
Gone, like our grandmothers
and grandfathers. And not
coming back.
No matter how young we are inside.
How frolicking. How ready
to go to the circus.
But it’s gone. Long gone.
Giddy-up gone.
And we never took
a still moment
to say
goodbye.

Saying the word “doodle” out loud —
“Doodle.”
“Doodle.” —
makes me feel
three months more young, light, and lean
three months less gassy and gray.
Noodle
Poodle.
Streudel.
“Doodle.”

Five minutes after the lights go down
I hear a familiar rustling two seats over.
Someone’s making things happen.
I’m a little stressed but not surprised
when a hand in the darkness offers
two white pills.
“No thanks,” I say, false cool, thinking:
“I am old dude.”
The hand withdraws.
A minute later, I ask:
“What was that? ‘E’? Ecstasy?”
“Altoids.”
And I nod a short,
tight nod,
as if that was my second guess.

"Live for today,"
he said
"We're all going to die."

"Especially you,"
she replied.

It was a short conversation.