wearing clothes in public
when someone might see
a naked thought hanging
in the crepuscular threads

both feet galumphing along
the sidewalk, both eyes treading
the windows leaving no prints,
both ears speculating
on the inarticulate sound of nearby

the nudity is blushworthy
the wind sharp and bitter
you have no memory of the question
I asked you before you left

evening and the shirt become
a prayerful testimony to the shadows
— until the raucous stars arrive
to make a party from this jaunt

the pause over the Eastern Canal
comes an alleluia to the carp
both feet keep on, both eyes stare
on, both ears hear nothing else

goodbye, covered flesh
goodbye, answers
goodbye

By the Ladd & Whitney memorial, 37 students
wait for the light to change. The dead are dead
below their feet (and a little to the left) quiet
and forgotten (mostly) — having died on the way
to a beautiful war misremembered (as all wars
are only beautiful if misremembered) by men
and women caught up in the fervor of freedom
believed rather than the meditation on freedom’s
best steely shackles and translucent skin.

When the light changes, life (valuable precious
perfect wonderful holy beloved dear kind
hopeful) sweet life crosses toward downtown
with backpacks full of books to quote
in papers to be written about subjects overflowing
with echoes of one war or another, every one
being more beautiful than the next assuming
the next is further back and harder to remember.

she watched the spider climb the wall
she watched the spider rest
she watched the spider wait and wait
for the fly that looked the best

she watched the fly zip to and fro
she watched house fly land
she watched the fly just fly away
as he didn’t understand

she watched a porcelain plate be empty
she watched a plate just wait for food
she watched a plate just wait and wait
and never know the food

she watched a spider climb down a wall
she watched a spider leave
she watched a spider’s web alone
and ponder what to believe

I was sitting next to an Indian woman reading a red leather bound book who was chewing on her own tongue and occasionally clucking as if what she were reading was so obviously true everyone on the planet should read it. She adjusted her orangey-gold sari and refocused on the words on the page.

We didn’t say anything to each other as we sat on the bench outside the large stone blocks that made up Lowell City Hall and the Library.

“Don’t you have a job?” Che asked me outside the library.

The lady looked up, he shook his head at her and pointed at me.

I shrugged, “Not exactly.”

“Then what ‘exactly’ do you do?”

I paused, “I guess I watch.”

I scratched my head, “I watch and I think.”

I looked at Che’s face. He was confused. I licked my lips, “Sometimes, I talk, but mostly I watch and think.

“How do you afford to live in Lowell?” he asked.

I told him the truth, “I think ‘afford’ is a bit of a stretch, I get a bit of assistance and I live in subsidized housing.”

“And that’s what you do all day? You watch? You think? That’s it?”

“No,” I said, “I also listen. I listen and read.” I nodded toward the big gray stone face of the Pollard Memorial Library.

Che ran his left hand through his thick dark swoosh of hair, “Do you ever pray?”

I tilted my head to the left, “Pray?”

Che raised an eyebrow, “To God?”

“Which God?” I asked.

“I was just curious if you prayed to any God.”

The lady glanced up from her book and smirked, then looked back down.

“I’m not sure what a God would be. What does it mean? Sure, I’ve gone to church before, but I just don’t feel it. I don’t see the evidence of anything … anything more than this.” I made a face full of consternation and couldn’t find anywhere to empty it.

Che sighed, “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”

The Indian lady smiled, “It’s not really all that complicated.”

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i saw the blond boy
in the skirt by the old city hall
laughing with his boyfriend

a wild ball of rage and love

alleluia, every little brown bird
flying off to find a perch
over the canal

domesticated tranquil disdain

a kiss, another kiss
the place where loneliness fades
into the cobblestones

brick by brick, faith built

amen, an edifice of hands
in hands reaching for each other
in the sun on the sidewalk

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we ran around the yard
with a net catching dragonflies
by the dozen and putting them in glass jars
twisted tightly closed

we played with them for hours
— well into the night
after they’d stopped moving
their wings.

in the morning, they were dead
— all of them — and we were
sad, but not sad enough to do it again.

how wind delivers spring seems a mystery
two chapters short — so I’m wondering
who did it and why and if they’ll be caught

a thousand years ago, kisses had no tongue
to speak the truth from out the unglossed lips
and yet, the wind still blew as cold and cruel

how sun watches spring return is a thriller
starting 10 chapters in — after the catalyst has died
and left us wondering why, what’s the motivation for THIS spring?

a thousand years ago, kisses were for lips
to touch lips with wanton promises and unglossed lies
and yet, the sun still burned as hot and painful

how wind bears winter away, it is a poem
without a title, and still I know
from whence comes the green and lush and perfect days ahead.

The world, for a moment anyways, is rather beautiful. The pall of death and dying seems almost  decorative as it covers the vibrant infinite variations of life and life to come.

I feel the presence of the turtle below my feet as I walk on the Earth and the Earth flows around the universe upon his back.

People are passing me this way and that. The city is alive with ignorance and the want of power — the power to change things, the power to be things, the power for power’s sake — and I’m glad to watch it pass.

I want nothing but to ask the turtle why he swims, why he carries us all, why no one is aware of him moving about the universe. I want to ask, but I choose silence instead.

The sky is gray, the air is raw, and I start to laugh. I realize, I’m just a silly story being told by a turtle to an irrelevant audience.

I look down at my hand and feet, accept that I’m still not a jellyfish and for a moment, I’m grateful.

The world is beautiful.

“Thank you,” I whisper to the turtle and no one hears.

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At the place where the waters divide,
I asked a squirrel , “What if this life
is just an endless loop?”

I repeated myself 3 times without response
from the squirrel.  Joylessly he ate something
like a nut. Spring is here but he found nothing
worthy of exaltation

I asked the squirrel, “Am I really every pain and every joy
and every thought  and every sigh—down to the everything
unspeakably small  and up to the unimaginably great
that I experience in my life?

The squirrel tilted his head, spat out some of whatever
was in his nasty little mouth and sped off along the water
toward a nameless faceless meaningless tree.

The feeling I’d had this conversation before started to sink in
so I chose between laughter and tears and went on with my day
hating that squirrel just a little bit more than loneliness.

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Che walked up behind me on Jackson Street outside the brickety face of the community health center, “Hey there.”

“Hey Che, how are you doing?”

As we walked he said, “I’m ok. The shock as has passed, I just feel … lost”

I nodded.

We paused by the little pedestrian bridge leading over the canal to the Appleton Mills apartments, “There are a million questions, it’s overwhelming. You just need to answer one of them and be ok with the answer. After that, everything will be ok.”

“You’re probably right,” He looked at me with his brown eyes pleading for me to do the work of finding meaning in his grief and loss, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I could but I just wouldn’t.

I started to shrug and thought better of it, “What do are you going to do?”

“There’s no services, he’s already been cremated. I”m not sure there’s much else to do. In fact, I’m not sure there’s anything I want to do.”

Che’s vagueness left me curious as to whether he meant there was nothing he wanted to do about his brother, or about everything else in life.

After a few minutes talking about the weather and tonight’s ball game, we both had to go.

Well, I guess he had to go, I know I just wanted to.

I watched him adjust his black jacket and keep on down the sidewalk wherever he was going.

Then he was gone.

Then I was gone.

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