Tying a Garbage Bag
Looking down at my hands, I see myself
as if for the first time for the thousandth time,
drawing into a bow the awkward leaves
of the black trash bag into which I have just deftly
dumped a plastic wastebasket full of tissues and
tampon wrappers, plus a flowerpot brimming
with cigarette butts. I find myself admiring the swift
dexterity with which I fashioned, almost effortlessly,
the weird knot to seal off the bag from the world
its contents had been contaminating. So now
it takes only this to dazzle my pride.
I had dreamed of splitting the wind
with my lips but will settle, for now, for being
the unacknowledged legislator of this bag.
Marriage Abstract
Finally, after a certain amount of time—say,
ten years—or a number of kids—say, two—I
wonder whether the marriage outpaces its love
story. Now is it a partnership? Have the lovers
become administrators of a shared project:
the survival and success of the family, a sly race
against neighbors, against adherents to opposing
beliefs, against the past? Father and mother
may be merely planners, workers, executors; the children
are the product, as is the house, the jobs, all
unfurling like a bright banner proclaiming . . . what?
That we are alive, our children thrive in our new
town, and we have not become our parents,
though we look like them and we act like them.
All Will be Well
He was born, he lived, he died.
The hero promised, and he lied.
First thing, the baby cried.
The distance was just too wide.
And then one day, the sun fell.
They found her at last, because of the smell.
No redemption—here, anywhere, is hell.
At least, after all, he didn’t tell.
You can’t walk there from here.
What happened to your other ear?
Sleep; there is nothing to fear.
Sleep, if you can—dawn is near.
And all will be well, someday, somehow,
if not in our lifetime, if not now.