Youth

Thoughts were three-minute eggs,
Enough time over the flame
In the simmering water

For the clear to settle white
Without solidifying
The yoke at the heart of them,

Ideas in that luscious phase
Where they have to be scooped up
So they don’t run everywhere.

Interpretive Dance

There are scratching, thumping sounds
Coming from the cardboard box.
Their source is invisible.

How much interpretation
Depends on prior knowledge,
On trust in prior knowledge.

If you assume the beast’s yours
And climbed in the box to play,
Then it isn’t frightening.

You assume your pets are gone
Or locked upstairs. Now that noise
In the box is terrible.

What is that, some kind of rat?
Did a squirrel get in the house?
And then the box tips over

And you can still hear the scratching,
But there’s nothing in the box.

Alleyways

Or maybe the body doesn’t always
Want to live. Maybe the body’s ready
To quit. It’s like a town now, a downtown

Where so many shops are shut or shoddy
And barely continuing to function
That you have to wonder which way it’s going—

Decline, of course, but quickly or slowly?

The middle isn’t so much empty as

Falling in on itself, gutted structures,
Crumpled plumbing, and the only hot spots
Are the alley corners where the dealers

Manage to attract business thanks to pain.
The store owners have given up on them.
Police give chase, but the pain lures them back.

Tell

For lack of languages,
Many brilliant creatures
Fail to speak for themselves.

For lack of inscriptions,
Many innovative
Civilizations failed

To leave their histories.
Lesser creatures, lesser
Societies described

The voiceless as they pleased.
Let this be a lesson.
However smart you are,

However civilized,
Talkers and writers tell.

Past Due

Savoring can’t save you from suffering.
Moreover, there’s a through-line from many
Savory things you’ve done to whatever
You currently find yourself suffering.
Savoring correlates with suffering,

And if, in the near past, savoring sits
Alone in recall as fond memory,
As the years go on, its correlative
Will arrive to join it, an argument
For dying early enough to skip town.