Maybe It’s in the Response

Are we not, to paraphrase

The poet Elizabeth

Alexander, of too much

Interest to each other?

(The paraphrase was adding

The phrase too much, to the quote.)

And anyway, poetry’s

Not the genre that displays

The most interest in others—

Supernatural beings,

Deities, that sort of thing,

Engaged archaic poets,

And metaphysics, landscapes,

Passionate declarations,

And lunar allegories

Had turns, but an interest

In each other per se tends

To emerge as something prose.

But it’s a wonderful line

At the end of a good rant

About what poetry is,

As she imagines herself

Shouting her definitions

Of poetry at students.

To be able to engage

Each other on such a thin

Subject, surely that suggests

Yes, indeed, we are too much

Of interest to each other,

And in how we will respond.

In the Years Unlikely to Come

Reading, reading anything
These days, as you weigh
Risks of addiction against
The approach of death

(Which is moving faster,
Which is likely to get here
First?) you have difficulty
Evaluating advice.

Everything you encounter
Startles you by focusing
On what to do in the frame
Of indefinitely living

(That is, if the document
Isn’t specifically focused
On the time close to death
And how to do a good job of it).

Each time, the sensation
Is tactile, like placing your palm
On a sleek surface that turns
Out to be knapped or rough.

What’s life’s texture doing here?
Life advice is like a sandwich—texture
With the crusts cut off—it’s just
All sandwich and then the void—

The place where sandwich ends,
The transition Is lost.
All sorts of dangers lurk
In living, trying to live

All those indefinite years
You’ll be living, trying
To achieve a worthy life—
But death in the near term?

That’s not usually
Included as an integral
Aspect of life advice.
Why not change your diet?

Please Visit This Humble Supplicant

Anything should be on the table
If the commodity’s contentment.
That’s what so easily fools people.

Contentment can’t be commodified.
Beyond tricks of domestication,
Commodification may have been

The most empowering invention.
From long before the first breweries
And bakeries, probably, the mind

Has been finding ways to assemble
Domesticated crops or cattle
With self-domesticated humans

To make any named thing countable
And the same quickly more of the same,
As if names could eternalize things.

It’s been so successful that people
Overlook its omnipresence and
Think of exchanges of countable,

Stable, multiple, identical
Experiences as if they’re goods.
The sense of contentment just happens

To count among experiences
That can’t be reliably exchanged
Or made capital, well-reified.

So any effort to purchase it
Will likely be a miss. Contentment
Is one of the old gods. Pray to it.

Tell Us How You Lost Your Father

A few tales depend on yours,
On how your growing past ends,
On how and when. A moment

Held, early in hospice, late
In the summer of dying
Off-schedule, past remission,

When dying felt almost good
Since it was promised, it was coming.
Better had it been later,

Much later, but consoling
Somehow in its certainty
Or near certainty. Six months,

That was the oncologist’s
Cliche-bordering promise,
The proverbial six months.

It’s been three months now. You don’t
Feel you’re dying, just lousy.
You’ve rushed to prep and relax.

Now it seems like there’s so much
Living before the dying,
Living you’ve got to get through,

Almost none of which will be
Spent perched beside a woodstove,
Watching bright flames flickering,

Sweetly playing chess with Death.
You’re well past ready to go,
Except a few tales depend

On yours, on how your growing
Mountain of past will balance.
For those few tales, you’re living.

Nine Endings

How small can the units get
And still show some coherence?
Do last lines really shape ends?

No, they go on forever.
Afterwards, you can go where
You want, it will be other-

Wise. This is it. Take it or
Leave it, Love. I give you this
Sun. What will survive of us

Is love, stronger than forgive-
Ness. It has never been used.
Keep it safe, pass it on. From

The rose and the easy cheek,
Deliver me, pass me on.

Like Milk Spilt on a Stone

One summer, you fell

Into the habit

Of buying iced chais

At a drive-through good

At baristaring,

And, at the day’s end

Often had a cup

With a bit of ice

Ready for the trash—

Usually, you’d toss

The splash of water

And leftover cubes

Into the grass,

If there weren’t a bin

To toss the whole cup.

Sometimes the water

Had a bit of milk

Still swirled within it,

Which meant white splatter

Might stain the pavement

Beside where you parked,

And when you saw that

Ghost pattern of milk—

Abstract on pavement—

You’d think of Yeats’s

Tiny poem, Spilt Milk,

And its last line, Like

Milk spilt on a stone.

Why a stone per se?

There’s an intricate

Elaboration

Of the threads of milk

Over broken stone.

Was there a reason

More personal than

The poem? Likely, yes.

Only Guessing

So here you are now,
The same animals
From the same species,

And there’s so many
Of you, too many
To think this mess through,

So you each do what
The rest of you do—
All hungry infants

Growing up guessing
The best thing to do
And fantasizing,

Over and over,
Old scenarios
For what you won’t do—

And meanwhile you talk
And work at friendships,
Try not to panic,

Get ready for bed,
Think about the news
That matters to you,

Whether it matters
Much to those who move
In other circles.

You can’t leave yourself
While watching yourself.
But you can witness

The meandering,
Nearly Brownian
Actions of people,

The same animals
From the same species,
Growing up guessing,

Doing what the rest
Of you do, too small
To think this mess through.