When he was young,

his uncle had told him

that the moon

was made of cheese.

 

From that point on,

he had ecstatically consumed

every Muenster, Cheddar,

and Swiss encountered.

 

He burgeoned into

“l’activiste du fromage,”

cultivating no discrimination

as to nationality, taste, or age.

 

If there was

a chunk of the moon

fallen to Earth,

he was the first

to consume its magic.

 

No one had ever

enlightened him

to the fact that the moon

was merely a reflector.

The sun did it all.

 

On its own,

the moon is only

a pock-marked stone satellite,

incapable of even

a cigarette’s glow.

 

Still, he clung

to the lunar cheese theory,

waxing,

never waning,

until the total eclipse.

 

Copyright 2017

 

Every Tuesday,
he walks along the railroad tracks,
picking a small bouquet
of wildflowers
to bring to her…
every Tuesday,
before his shift starts
at the meat packing plant.

Although no one
has actually confirmed it,
he is convinced
that the souls of slaughtered animals
drape him in second skin.
The occasional side-eye and step-around
confirm it.

She alone knew him
when sunshine coursed
through his veins,
electrified his hair,
baptized him the alley god
of supplication and supply.

He offers the bouquet
as if it were heroin.

“What is that?” she asks.

He smells the flowers,
sensing the crawl in his skin.
“Forget-me-nots, mom.”

She smoothed the band-aid across his heart,

fingertips hesitant as an awkward first kiss.

And all the while,

he held his breath,

the pain of her touch

overwhelming the wound.

She advised him to get sutures,

avoid an infection,

as if their love

had festered contagion.

Without a goodbye,

she rode out on a death sentence.

Later that night,

alone with insomnia,

he ripped off the band-aid,

bled her name in the sheets.

Copyright 2017

The air shifts

and she fills her pockets

with opal stones of Babylon,

unaware that the weight

stunts the appearance of wings.

Songs hammered out

on the spines of the Himalayas

cover the sun,

turn bread into hope.

Dance, lost daughter of Paradise,

for the wine at your feet

will soon turn into water.

She hammered a sign to the front of her heart:

“Private Property.

No Trespassing.

Violators Will Be Devastated.”

He was an outlaw, rules were no challenge.

When she wasn’t looking,

he vaulted the walls, headed straight for her heart.

Somehow she sensed this, added an even larger sign:

“Posting – Private Property.

No Hunting, Fishing, Trapping.

Violators Will Be Completely Ignored.”

But he was a rebel, chewed restrictions like bubble gum.

He stole the heart out from under her.

No warning.

No struggle.

And now there’s a welcome mat,

hanging basket of fuchsias,

in front of the door of her wide-open love.

He told her that he was a pirate,

let her peek under his patch.

She shivered his timbers.

He walked her plank.

Together they yo-ho-ho’d

until the island was dry

of Caribbean rum.

When the tide rose as high

as her hopes,

he hoisted the Jolly Roger,

sailing away on a night with no moon.

And all the while she slept

like a mermaid,

the mark of an “x”

black on her heart.

I had a late-night beer with God last Friday.

“This one’s on me,” I said,

slapping my ten dollars down hard on the bar.

Exhaustion from a day of creation/damnation

masked the party face of

The One Who Cannot Be Named.

No words passed between us.

We just tapped our pale ales in a nonreligious toast:

to life,

to mercy,

to the lyrics of Leonard Cohen,

God offering up the same wink on Friday

that Satan hands out on Saturday.

Give me a marker,

a black, fine-line marker.

Offer me your hand,

open, palm up.

Now close your eyes,

your dark eclipsed eyes,

as I gift you a word

for no reason at all.

I press my back against the chipped cement of the underpass walls,

the dank saturation wicking through my t-shirt.

The cigarette I bummed off a fellow insomniac

roaming the dark streets in search of an answer

gives off a subtle nightlight glow.

If I squint, I can just about make out

the myriad tags and graffiti images

spray painted on the tunnel walls.

Instinct urgers me to place my left hand

over the street artist’s blue print.

I am in an urban Cave of Lascaux.

The air is ripe with the saturated promise of rain.

I can tell this is no

maybe,

possible chance,

percentage

sort of shower.

No.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand ready like lightning rods.

Tonight there will be torrents, fireworks, and percussion.

Time to lace up my tap shoes and ask Gene Kelly to dance.