Shadow Box

Sometimes I imagine 
All of the letters crowding 
The ruled shelves of a paper
Cabinet slowly bowing 

Beneath them as I weigh them 
And place them carefully 
From left to right in something 
Akin to symmetry, 

And pray that when I’m finished 
And close the thin glass door, 
I haven’t said so much 
It crashes to the floor. 

Sparkler

Planted in the dark: 
Electric dandelion 
Shedding blazing seeds. 

Attic

Here the ribs of the house lie unconcealed, 
The skin of paint and plaster peeled away; 
The soft pink flesh of fiberglass revealed: 
The belly of the whale in which your days 
Were swallowed whole, with all this other junk
Like Jonah or Geppetto, while the world 
Was going on outside. In here you sunk
Your passions in your Pequod, and grew old. 
Neck-deep in the bric-a-brac of years, 
Which clings to you like barnacles — a crust 
Of sessile things that moved whenever you did,
And when you didn’t multiplied like dust — 
You stand behind a giant, filmy eye
And stare out at a world that passed you by. 

Time Slip

The pale green plastic saucer 
Wobbles a little bit 
As it flies from me to my daughter,
The way the Martian ships 

In those old science-fiction 
Double-features did, 
When we did not exist 
And my dad was just a kid. 

Now my dad is dust,
And the girl who wrapped her fist 
Around my fingertip
Plucks the puny disc

Out of the air, as if 
It was just a frisbee,
Or she was now a fifty-
Foot tall giantess. 

Charm for a Pencil

From dark, inchoate chaos, 
Summon now, ye wand, 
Words worthy of a poet 
As I wave you with my hand;

Or else if what is wanted 
Is magical persuasion, 
Then subtlety or bombast 
Befitting the occasion; 

If art, then render pictures 
Enchanting to the eye;
If fairy tales, then fictions
As real as you and I. 

Radio

A little dog someone has left 
Tied to a garden fence
Lies down in the sunburnt grass 
And immediately commences 

Making minute adjustments to 
The dishes of its ears, 
Tuning into frequencies 
That I will never hear. 

Event Horizon

At the reservoir’s glass bottom,
A sticky residue 
Is all that remains of a bottle 
Of something green in hue,

Which made me so besotted 
It left a great abyss 
Like a terrible black dot
Where time does not exist.