Dango

Even Us

Life, once about achievement
turns to talk about children, or even
grandchildren, old people no matter
how self-important become bookends
for the next generation, supporting them
in their dreams of success and change,
knowing all will turn to dust before
the world changes, knowing their
specific molecules may be floating around
in streams, trees, factories and muck,
as much the victims as instruments
of their kind.

that old midnight truth

Resembling nothing so much as
a big, sad eyed dog
as he grew older, teeth cracking as
he bit into a bagel, that was first sign

Then, ears no longer producing wax of the
required consistency, suddenly susceptible
to pain and infection, hours spent
gritting his teeth as the pressure
bore a hole straight through his skull

He did in a flash understand
certain actions taken
by the terminally in pain,
under the influence
of the kinds of sedatives that condemned
Hemingway, Cobain

Clearing with the dawn
on wings of resurgent youth
even he had to admit he felt no pain--
though touching ears from time to time
furtively, as if to find some trace
of that old midnight truth,
intent on catching old man time
in the midst of devious rounds...

Five Minutes in the House Alone

Going off to the pool
She recalls the first time she wore the swimsuit
it was a terribly hot summer afternoon
and she ran to her room afterwards, sobbing
the boys had made a cruel joke about it in the pool
it was the first and last time she wore it, her hands
touch the edges of the fading picture

A trip to Grand Canyon, laughing the whole way
from Bakersfield, making it in the hot dry summer
and setting up the tent with
a hundred other one-off campers
their neighbors peeling price stickers
from their newly bought sleeping bags and pads,
making faces as the shutter clicked
over the open chasm front and center

Quicker now, birthdays, graduations in succession
days at the beach and faces lost in the crowd,
time flying past until pictures came fewer
and finally no faces at all around
Anne Mullinax, quiet, retired
turns and wheels back to the kitchen
and puts the water to boil
for the second cup this hour
hears the crash of the junk mail through the door slot
and the tick of the the clock, quiet and dependable
pours a little water out into the pot with the
houseplant that curves safe and still
as the cats stretch in the sun on the wooded floor
and one meows softly and scatches to be let out.

(this was written for the `phonebook challenge` in which you pick a random name from the phonebook and write about him or her. Yet I couldn`t help writing about a real person and place.)