"I have been published recently in the Georgetown Review, The Pinch, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal. with work upcoming in Poetry East and Big Muddy."
IN MY CAR
The commercial tells me that it’s all here and
I’m beginning to believe it. Its plush leather
seats, its acres of leg room...I could live in
this car. I can turn the key and the world
rumbles on all side of me. I can switch on the
headlamps and it’s a light like a god’s light.
And there’s the radio...any song, any style,
any volume with just a few flicks of the
wrist. And it doesn’t matter that I’m alone.
With my hands on the wheel, I’m all I need.
It doesn’t take another soul to tell me
I can get from here to there just by pointing
this thing. I don’t have to hear “turn to the
right, to the left” or “slow down” or “stop.”
It’s almost unconscious the way I get where
I’m going and I like that. And even better,
the driving there is usually the destination.
You can’t beat it. Wherever I am can’t be better.
I’m in a car and I’m cruising. You sure can’t
be in your own body this good.
HA HA
I have the laughter sickness.
Humor in family
so insert tubes in me,
weigh my belly down with pills.
So many yuks at work,
please, the needle quick.
Without rescue,
I may never take
a damn thing serious again.
Sex is absurdity
in desperate need of operating table
Cut my heart out.
It won’t stop chuckling.
Decontaminate my brain...
left, right and funny side.
Lasers to the eye,
probes down the mouth,
or I might even crack up
over death.
My own included.
So come on,
put me back on the machine.
Life, I think you call it.
MY HOSPITAL REQUESTS
Snap of twig on the trail.
Get me that would you.
Fern hollow
when the breeze is blowing.
I’d swap that
for any two of these chocolates.
Your breath is on my list,
the manna of bedside manner.
Lean over and kiss me.
I promise my germs will stay put.
And I’d love that hardy root
that juts out from the cliff,
one hand reach from the summit.
Reading matter?
I’d love to read the inscription
at the top of the water tower.
You only brought yourself?
Then how about touch.
That’s what I miss most just lying here.
A soothing hand on my forehead.
And fingers tangled in mine
like spiders trying to mate.
Sure nurses being me pills.
But pills don’t bring me nurses.
