Powell's

These books are
built to live in like a shoe;
narrowing possibilities
expanding possibilities
carving language into you,
dissolving pictures,
forming pictures to put
in mental boxes and
place on shelves.

The group of older women tote shopping baskets full of various sized books. Their arms hang unevenly: the right one almost drags the basket down another unknown aisle, the left points and searches. Some of the women lightly kick their baskets, allowing them to slide on the shiny pavement floor. They scan the shelves for a title they recognize, a cover that intrigues them.

A boy sits cross-legged, blocking most of an aisle, leafing through a stack of Asimov novels.

In the Powell's coffee shop I read Frank O'Hara and look at everyone. The boy across from me is searching for a good translation of "The Golden Ass." I pick up John Berrymen and read a poem about suicide.

Pests/Ghosts

First, it was the moths. In the humidity of summer, my room filled with living moths and then with dead ones; the window sill lined with furry winged bodies. Eventually, when the days grew cold, I swept a pile of their dried bodies into my paper garbage bag and was done with them. But the cold brought no solace. Rats gnawed through my walls and forced there way into my room. Twice now, the rats have been killed with a strange poison, and while they have not returned again, the warming air has brought many flies.

My World View

I am glad that the street I live on is flat. If I am sitting on the roof and a biker passes below me, he glides along leisurely and with a smile. If I lived on the side of a hill and was seated on my porch, the bikers passing would be in the midst of a struggle. Perhaps, if the hill was big enough, no bikers would pass me at all.

The Tree of Knowledge

He was a person defined
by what he wasn't
defined by who he wasn't
defined by himself,
huddled by an oak tree,
arms suddenly stretched
so that someone might know him.

The Trap

As the Rats chewed their way
into
my whiskey dreams
they said
You are not a human
but a weak rabbit
feeding on incandescence.

Morning

In the dark morning I rode the loaner bike to work with no helmet and no front light. The bike has a skull on the back of the seat that lights up when you knock it. It is too short for me and one of the pedals is loose. Now the sun is rising and the ominous feeling this ride gave me is beginning to dissipate...

The City

Your reflection in
black granite,
walking.