Enchiladas

I made an enchilada
casserole last night.
I may have made

some kind of enchiladas

a thousand times. 

No recipe, it’s in my head;
layers of pork and chiles,
onions and herbs,
tortillas and cheese.

Layers that live there
on top of the details
about dinosaurs
and California
and distant wars

that I shared playing
Jeopardy on Zoom
with my office mates
the night before.
Hope I didn’t bore them
-much.

When the enchiladas
were on the table
and the candles were lit,
we said a prayer
of gratitude

-for the love we shared
that day and every day,
for the kitten now in our lives,
for the departure of the toxins
from our skies.

We prayed that the toxins
in our national atmosphere
would depart as well.
Then we ate the enchiladas
and they were good.

High Noon

Everyone was
talking about it:
the color of despair.

Looking up the AQ
on sites like Purpleair.

When noon looked like
it had been drowned
in rusty water.

The gray replacement
was not a comfort
when we longed for blue.

And we declared,
Is that red eye my sun?

Oswald's grave

His mouth gaped,
made an O, 
an Oreo,

A gasping carp
on land mouth,

when the bullet
from Ruby’s snubnose

Colt Cobra .38
pierced his gut.

The gun then sat in
a white cloth bag
in a safety deposit box

for twenty four years
while it's ownership
was contested.

Ruby’s brother Earl
sold it for legal fees
and back taxes.

To a real estate developer

from Del Ray Beach.

He tried to sneak out the back door

of the auction at the Omni Hotel

with the revolver hidden

in a velvet Crown Royal bag.

Back home in Florida,

he fired hundreds of bullets
from the gun into a swimming pool.

Mounted them on plaques
and sold them to benefit
various charities and
environmental groups.

Beside Oswald’s grave
in Fort Worth Texas,

on the adjacent plot

is a grave stone, same size
and same pink granite

as his.

The name engraved
on the matching stone 
is Nick Beef.

Some things (in the chaos)

There were motes of ash

caught in the spider webs

in the vine beside the driveway.

Replacing the usual morning dew.

And somewhere, perhaps

a rainbow gleamed behind

the lightning and the curtain

of rain that never reached

the homes and trees and hills

transformed into charcoal

and rubble behind a veil

of flame and smoke.

Someone said they saw

otters in the creek

where none had been seen

in half a century. 

Which would be fine

if there were enough

salmon fingerlings

to feed them. There aren’t.

Plenty of room in our hearts

for otters and salmon,

and the calico kitten

joining our home real soon.

Does that love pour out

the window and down the street?

Around the corner, the country

across the sea?

It does for me.

As much as I can;

though it is hard sometimes

isn't it? To feel it more

Than merely to assert

I care, I love, you matter.

That’s where small creatures

feed us, lead us into tenderness.

Shelter that love carefully.

Cup it like a candle.

Don’t let the storm

that would gladly snuff it, in.

Dreambox

To shed this flesh

like pudding spilling from a bowl,

become a bone jumbled frame

that folds neatly into a box.

A dark unpierced

by scraping hands,

finding the peace

of walls inside walls

-an onion adding layers 

or is that a pearl?

A scar of gristle

shrouding the shrapnel

of old nights tunneling

to the cracked and bleeding surface?

And a scream pleads,

unheard outside these walls

in the leafy streets

where I felt the sun on my cheek

and a breeze on my back

and the squeak

of my rubber-soled shoes

was loud.

And the taste

of this morning’s coffee

and last night’s cigarettes

is a metallic trace

that only fades away

with sleep. 

Is the plan, the purpose

the same? a reach

that clutches air?

Does it matter

in the long run, short run,

it’s all running

of one kind or another.

Just the sweep of the second hand

or planets spinning through the void

and isn’t the truth to be found

in the pause between the breaths

when the motion, the swing,

the pendulum stops?

I. don’t. know.

So I take my hands

away from my eyes

and it’s still a morning in July

and the datura outside my door

smells sweet and the mockingbirds

are singing and I hear a faint voice

on a distant television;

a carefully structured voice

created in a studio

to calm and cheer or horrify,

depending on what’s needed

for the moment or the day. 

Better do some laundry,

do some thinking,

do some not thinking

find someplace inside this body

without this body,

a kernel, a cocoon,

a tearless, cheerless peace,

a dissolving, clockless sleep.

If that were true,

I wouldn’t need to write it,

try to conjure that landscape

uninhabited by memory, dreams,

sweetness and pain. 

small

saw a spider.

small.

no more than

a grain of sand.

what size

is a spider heart,

a spider brain?

drifting on

a strand of silk

carried on

the merest breath

of breeze.

small.

as are we all.

beloved though,

just the same.

Stones

The wall is whiskered

with weeds and

whispered prayers

On slips of paper

slipped into the gaps

between the stones.

I don’t know why I’m crying.

Do mere stones have such power?

The streets of the Old City

are roofed, dark as tunnels.

Emerging from the murk

of the Via Dolorosa,

the courtyard of the

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

gleams in the flat light

of November noon.

The vestibule is cool.

The slab where he is said

to have been laid

and risen from

is smooth,

polished by a billion kisses.

and one more, mine.