Poem 51: Letter to Brooklyn

I've walked
across your bridge,
worn your beer shirt.
Local. From this old river
town in the hills, to you
old river town by the sea.
The naval fleet passing betwixt,
an orchard with a Victrola,
bottles of bad apples, drops,
sparkling, foil, kissing.
Syncopated, discordant, blue.
Once, on the stairs in a walkup
what I wanted to say. But.
Know this. Out in the provinces,
some of us have stayed
amongst the moss and brick
and running. The water even
flows.

Poem 50: Spring Comes to the Candle Store

Tomorrow, it will be April, I said to the woman greeting us on our way into the store. Have we been here before? Oh yes, this is our indoor playground. Baseball hat, my two-year-old son said to me, back inside our front door, getting ready to go. Opening day. The flagship candle store is all animatronic singers, gunnite cobblestone floors, and twinkling lights on the ceiling. Today the soap bubbles blown down in the Bavarian evergreen grove are strangely comforting: at least here, the snow is fake and we can pretend winter is quaint. We change diapers, we meet Mommy, we stand on the bistro tables and watch the indoor fountain. It's spring, so I'm thinking of opera and frolic. Of Hart Crane in an apple orchard, drinking hard cider and listening to jazz records. As we walked past the towers of beach scented candles, Tone Loc rapped "you can be my queen, if you know what I mean, if you let me do the wild thing" over the store speakers. We buy nothing. We brought our own snacks. On the way out, the man at the door said, At least it's not snowing here. My son and I paused under the eave -- he was picking up rocks to throw onto the deck -- so I could point out the little green shoots poking out from the soil beds. Look, I said. We are almost there.

Poem 49: Grit

On a bluff above town, a man sits

In his car, eating French fries 

From a bag. The graffiti inside

The tower features a moth

And beckons you to jump.

I keep noticing the vinyl siding

Of the houses, crowded in

And leering at the street.

When do the crusty gray

Snow banks finally melt?

Where do you suppose 

That ambulance is heading?

The road bends; that's why

You can't see the police station.

There are two McDonald's 

In town. One next to the tire

Place with the inspirational

Signs. None of this goes

Anywhere. Always, you can stand

On the bridge, looking down

At the river and see that

Little island with the tree

That bends in high water.

Poem 48: Still Life With Tennis Trophy

Sometimes, the burnish against the wood paneling
suggests a rustic cabin, when sitting on the ground,
helping put on boots, looking up. There is the bookshelf,
a cookbook for poor poets. Turkey feathers
in a glass vase, my grandmother's candelabra.
Once, we pulled a table by the stove and ate
potatoes by candlelight. The mantle clock, stopped
at 11:10, with a newspaper clipping taped beside.
I won the trophy in doubles, defeating my dad.
The pedestal is shiny and green. The mantle
is painted brick red, the glove rests
on the ash can, black like we saw in Columbus
in an art museum without labels, in a corridor
bookstore, in a glass stein restaurant.
Sometimes the freesia dries and droops,
Sometimes we force the forsythia.
Perhaps we should add a jar of sparkling
Cider, a fire in the stove. We'll burn old
essays, we'll consider the crushed brick
they top dress tennis courts with.
I think it's biere de garde, with the woman
on the front, liberty always has bared breasts.
A court in Versailles, which David painted:
the men all salute, while light pours in from above.
In Boston, where America and France
muralled together there's a gold dome, and
bronze ducks. March days there, too.
Wool socks hang on the gate. The ballet
trophy is in first position, my daughter
was so proud, she wanted ours together.
Some days it's hard to get her boots on,
some days it's hard to get out the door.

Poem 47: Kinkadean

We are always in dusk
On streets pleasantly cloaked
In a half dark, and a light
buzzing from the windows.
It is not fearful, nor lonely.
Loneliness is what I would expect.
The sun lingering an hour later
in the afternoon. Those canvasses
in that store in St. Augustine,
they were all too obvious for us,
inauthentic. I, too, glow
indistinctly. To the coming night
I present a yellow warmth,
all goodness and homily.

Poem 46: Two Haiku

Though there was a line

We stepped into the bulb room

Hit by the scent: spring

The pond still frozen

Despite the balmy March sun

It held as they kissed

Poem 45: River Rats

A pizza house in Athol

By the window

On an April night

A beer

Some mozzarella sticks

A number for our boat

Good luck, they say

In the next booth

In this town

The prospect

Of a rough paddle

Makes you a citizen