The Astronaut
On the morning
of the day
they are going
to shoot him
to the moon
the astronaut
wakes up yawns
and stretches
then remembers
he must leave
his children
his wife who
awake now
yawns and then
remembers too
his penis especially
doesn't want to go
into all that
cold black space
it wants to stay
right here
where it's warm
but if
he's going
to have to
go it sure as hell
is going too
When Writing Poems Could Get You Killed
I used to like to pound the typewriter
keys and pretend
I was hearing gunshots in an almond orchard,
the bullets neatly unbuttoning
the poet's white dress
shirt, this back when
I used to spend a lot of time wishing
we lived in a time when writing
poems could get you killed
instead of getting you a tenure-track job.
But when I think of Lorca
leaning on the shovel the fascists gave him
to dig his own grave, out
of breath from digging his own grave,
when I think of Lorca I think
what was I thinking?
Golden Eye
Real woods were filling up
with real snow while I sat inside
listening to Kid A on repeat,
playing Golden Eye.
The only level I remember
there was snow everywhere,
satellite towers I suppose
I was supposed to blow up,
enemy combatants
wearing winter suits,
or were they
for nuclear radiation?
I don't remember anything
really but the snow and how
I always found my way
to the edge of the game
where the details were
all a little blurred.
Some designer got lazy,
tired of playing God.
Whoever it was I was
waiting for under
those pixalated pines,
I thought I gave up
waiting for years ago,
but here I am again.
You who've come this far too,
take my cold hand.
Tell me it was you.
Supper
On the walls of your house
there were hung
antique tools
of woodcutting and agriculture.
Where is the wheat
the scythe reaped now?
I asked. Where the pine
the crosscut saw cut down?
Vanished, you said,
into other forms,
as well they should have.
Such as? Such as
the bread on the table,
or the table under the bread.
But all I see, I said,
is the scythe and the saw.
You're in the wrong
room, you said.
And we sat down at the table
and broke the bread.
Shortest day of the year.
Disappearing against my flesh,
the last sliver of soap.
Electric Christmas Candles
At some point there must have been one
too many housefires around Christmastime
maybe the tree went up in flames or maybe
they left a candle burning on the windowsill
then there were sirens seething through
the carols and ashes blowing over the snow
so someone invented the electric candle
marketing it as safer around children
safer around eggnog but they were made
to resemble real candles down to the flame
-shaped bulbs that curved as if upon a wick
in a draft while the candlesticks were made
to look as if they were made of actual wax
right down to the dripping drops so that
it was as if they were always burning
even in summer when they were shut
away in a drawer that smelled of pinesap
wrapped up in their cords and the little glass
bulbs like a memory of flames like flames
you could have sworn you blew out
First Word
My mother tells me
my first word was key.
I was trying to say
kitty but instead
said a word that
unlocked the language,
turning in the soft
lock of my mouth,
opening the door through which
every word since
has come pouring out
on the heels of the first.
And the room will never
be empty, nor
the door locked again,
it being the kind of key
that only turns one way.
Cattle Guards
In our lives also there will sometimes be
Something like a cattle guard between us
And what it is we want – the lush pasture
Across the dirt road, or the road itself,
Emptily winding through the green mountains.
It may be nothing more than a gate laid
Flush with the earth, but when we come to it
We shy away. We know it shouldn't be
Enough to stop us but it always has
Before, which is why it works, every time.