I Was Heading for Georgia but Saw the Sunrise
in Virginia the last ten miles or so
as the Interstate dripped down the side
of a high-top at five-percent grade
nothing but view to my left
across the valley I spotted that mountain
shaped like a turtle—shell side & budding neck—
poking its lonely head above a silk line of mist
red & orange set along the fog’s plane
like stemless blooms of roses bobbing in a pond
like candles on a silver cake
for those few minutes I had no destination
no hotel room waiting in Columbus
no acquaintances to make
it was as though I stole a pause from life
then froze it without aid of camera’s lens
before my car descended past the treeline &
on into North Carolina where
it might as well be raining & it was
Traffic Writes Our Biographies
We are like this, you & I: sitting in a car,
waiting on something to wait for.
Look. Two dragonflies perform their mating dance
in front of our windshield like a movie screen.
We remain the ones not moving.
Our biographies would run long with pages
on which nothing happens,
interspersed with chapters of mayhem.
There’s a jumper on the Southside Bridge,
an army of cops trying to talk her down
(which might be the wrong choice of words).
We’ve paused until it’s back to work for you,
or Netflix, more poetry for me,
more silence that speaks loudest in my head.
I’ve spent so much of my life wanting
the new & unusual, the inspirational
even when it’s cruel. I’d like to think
I’ve answered all the questions. Have I?
Tell me how to move forward.
Tell me how to sing the coming verse.
My Father’s Hearing Aid Broke
When I see him, first time in a decade,
at first seeing is all we do: both of us
grayer, fatter, flawed, but smiling
at the lands we’ve crossed & come to.
If only when he spoke he weren’t so loud,
he might not sound like some
hell-singing evangelist,
with me the congregation sleeping,
unwilling to be roused by prophecy,
mystery, shouts. It might be ten more years
before I crawl toward him next,
if both of us live so long &
his promised rapture won’t occur,
which, of course, it never does,
not once despite the divinations
of so many fathers just like him.
Bridge
Driving across the Southside Bridge
where iron girders ruffle my radio signal
like a hand through static hair,
I think I might stall traffic,
climb from my Kia, walk to the rail.
Looking down, I’ll remember
watching the boats with my father
at Charleston’s Sternwheel Regatta.
Speeders ripped water. Colorful
fishing craft trolled near shore.
Partiers on wide, raftlike pontoons
drank their hours, dancing adrift
to harmonies of whatever has-been band
threw noise over stillness.
We sat on the bank, observing,
sometimes pointing like witnesses
to a robber fleeing. I like to believe
my father spoke up then to explain
in Moby-Dick-like precision
the clockwork of what we saw,
or maybe to sing along as, say,
The Drifters eased into their choruses.
But he & I were the same in our isolation,
our way of watching without interaction.
We were patients under the dentist’s ether:
floating, mesmerized, counting
backward from a random number.
When we regained consciousness,
it would be time to go home,
as I’m doing now: crossing over,
putting a mile behind me:
my car’s speakers hiss, whir, clap, sigh, &
I wonder if I’ve heard this song
or if it’s another lie that memory tells.
As a Passenger in a Golf Cart Searching for Alligators Inside a Gated Community
shoeless shanghaied riding the twilight
vehicle jerking beneath me
like a roller coaster on the upslope
what will we do if we see one?
the word ‘suddenly’ comes to mind
like in a mystery novel a real page-turner
I scan the circumference of the water
hazard—16th hole—then I’m past it
gliding among the prefab houses
palm trees like serifs added to their yards
my stepmother almost seventy
still maneuvers like a hummingbird
she shows me one of the lakes &
another pond a dock a cul-de-sac of reeds
we never locate anything with teeth
before darkness drags us home
“don’t give up” she says “they’re here &
time to time they come to look for us”
Day Trip to the Huntington Museum of Art
Grace walks by the Renoir without slowing.
I follow, saying, “Renoir,” as if I’m a boy
navigating the toy aisle at the supermarket,
begging his mother & father, “I want
the Renoir. Can I have the Renoir,
please, please, please?” She tells me,
“It’s not one of his best,” but I,
not having seen one up close before,
double back, stand, stare, dazzled &
a bit confused by the red, orange, umber.
It’s a blur, alien, so much I find it hard to spot
the Young Woman in a Landscape.
I enjoy the painting though,
even the tiny hole that attests to its age &
a handler’s careless movement years ago.
It’s obvious to me Grace & I won’t agree
about the Renoir, although we share a moment
mesmerized by some minor artist’s
misty portrait of the moon, then a gallery
filled with newer panoramic visions
of Antarctic ice floes, a few valleys
depicted from a height so intense, precise,
I feel a flash of vertigo as though
I’m standing tiptoed on the edge of a cliff:
this our holy pause to be amazed together
as if sharing a sunset or good news—
what won’t happen with the Renoir:
divisive, disputable—which, whether
you like it or not (as together we do),
proves it to be the work of a daring master.
Rose Garden, Ritter Park
Step, step, then circle over imperfect,
treacherous bricks. Flying beetles
like oily blue-green bullets
assail us from all angles
as though thinking us
tender petal-flesh they sought,
still seek after bouncing off &
back to flight. They mistake us
for ax blades of color—
mauve, merlot, & bonfire orange—
though we are pale shadows
in the graveyard of light,
workers sweating through their day
on the perfume assembly line.
We breathe in until we suffocate
from pleasure, when one of us
speaks the safe word, & we go.
Heading into Pittsburgh on the First Day of Summer
Two miles before the Squirrel Hill Tunnel,
I’m stuck in traffic: cars that shudder forward
as if dragged by chains—a few feet,
a few more. On my radio, the forecaster says,
“You’re stuck in traffic,”
a dreamlike statement so I feel
the way a carpenter must should he witness
one of his unfinished buildings burn.
I want to start up a conversation
with the news man, tell him,
Buddy, I already figured that out,
thank you. He’s not listening.
He’s moved on to weather,
while I’ve moved next to not at all.
“Thunderstorm coming,” he warns, &
in my rearview, there’s the charcoal haze
of violent praising, sky blessing steamy
tarmac, tractor-trailers, hot earth, &
men like me trapped in their boxes,
ever almost there, almost there.
Hamburger at Hemingway’s
Not Papa’s place strewn with cats,
rifles, maybe (I imagine) whiskey bottles
displayed like a mantelpiece clock
for men who can’t tell time.
Just a pub, famously named,
in one gray neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
The young (beardless) man on stage
speaks in riddles & plays a trivia game
with the crowd of students doubling down
on drinks in their happiest hour.
I’m in the next room, eating a burger
that bursts in my mouth like a capsule
spilling its medicine. Black Angus,
according to the menu. I take small bites
as if filet mignon, as if kissing
the girl destined to die at the end
of a novel. Could be the best I’ve eaten
in Pittsburgh. Could be what defines me
as tragic hero, my flaw a hunger,
my appetite an ocean swallowing,
spitting out the gnawed carcass
of the fish. Or else I’m the old man
who caught it, lost it, went to bed starved,
knowing he’ll never need sustenance again.
Crossing
the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border
masked in mist
a cataract
turned mother-of-pearl
I know this mile but can’t see the sign
coming home invisible the way I always do
like a talented thief
breaking in to his dwelling
where shadows keep watch &
nothing’s left to steal