Crossing Mourning Kill

Sift the roots of disease—

Pissing evil,

a drafting compass—

to go, to come,

to stand or walk

with legs apart.

To see without the center,

to speak through cracked lips.

To grip with the hands or teeth,

to grasp with the mind.

The mark of a pen,

the striking of a clock,

the single pull of an oar.

~

No way out through words,

only the momentary stays,

the usual discovery,

litany of awes and ails.

~

My boy’s three-year checkup

three months overdue.

The rain, and August’s sinny vegetation.

Route 50 South to Burnt Hills,

the pleasure of signs and names,

directions and numbers.

Modest, pitiful facts

amidst passing faces.

Just killing time? Can’t say.

~

~

The popping knees, one roughed raw;

the calf-cramp that spiders away;

azien, short breath, a panting;

a single abnormal kernel;

the enlarged veins resembling crab legs;

the spreading sores hard as crab shells.

~

When road transverses creek,

when now is filled with then,

when the living look to the dead,

when we dwell in the palace of grief.

~

A catch,

a holding,

possession.

An old woman’s

last word: always.

Disappear,

be born.

Amiss? Arise.