goodbye, and all that...

there's nothing special about this
last cup of tea. i mean, yes, you
boiled the water, but that's

no reason to get worked up:
just a couple cents' worth
of electricity, some tap water

(practically free) and a few
dried leaves from somewhere
you'll probably never go.

me neither. yet there it sits
steeping on my desk, staining itself
antique green, pirate map brown

and cooling slowly. soon it will be
room temperature. tepid. undrinkable.
but that's entropy for you:

of all the laws of the universe, it's the one
most likely to ruin a perfectly good
cup of tea. i could drink it quick

but it wouldn't matter. either way
you will be gone, and i will have to
make the next cup all on my own.

it's no big deal. really. i
can make a cup of tea
without anybody's help.

it's just that i have grown
fond of having you around.
it's just that some friendships--like tea--

grow stronger, deeper, the longer
you let them sit. it's just that i might
miss you a little when the kettle starts to boil.

but i'll be okay. and so will you.
it's just a little water, just a little heat,
just the comfort of ritual and good company.

no big deal. so. goodbye and all that.
if you need the kettle, it's here.
i'll keep it warm.

Unloved Children

There are no bad babies.

Some arrive unexpectedly.
Some are inconvenient.

Some overfill an already crowded room.
But that is no fault of the child.

Some are not loved:
Because their parents are not loving,

Or not in a position to love,
Or were hoping to love some other child instead.

Every note you play is a child:
Produce them deliberately.

Love them fiercely.
There are no wrong notes.

Only notes you didn't want,
Notes you failed to celebrate

Once you gave them life.

poet man (ii: a ball of clay)

how nice not to have to live
surrounded by everything we have broken:

our failures

our embarrassments

the curio shelf i made in grade 10 shop class
in spite of having no curios
no plans to acquire
no patience for right angles.

the ashtray i made fathers day 1977
when smoking was in and podge was in
and i was old enough to know
the smile on dad's never-smoked-a-day-in-my-life face
was also broken a round bowl a lump of grey
a small 7 thumb-print for a cigarette to rest
along the edge. useless. ugly.

if dad had turned it over he would have seen
poet man as child had taken the compass
from a protractor set (buffalo instruments
blue plastic case with also
30/60 and 45 angles plus ruler inscribed
in both metric and imperial: the two official languages
of how-far-the-moon-from-here?)

and carved a heart.

the international symbol for
i-don't-know-how-to-say.

a rough but dutiful thank-you was fashioned from a tongue of clay.
poet man as child waited for elves to haul it away.

add it to the list of times an apology was owed to someone.

but who? and why? the problem has never been
how to speak, only what to say.

the problem has never been
how-do-i-feel-about-what-just-happened
but did-it-happen-that-way-at-all?

let's be honest here:

all i am sure of in that story
is a red picnic table under a tall hickory tree.

that, and maybe the protractor set.

the word "podge" has the ring of truth
and so it stays.

the past is clay we mold and shape
to make our ugly useless gifts
and every broken thing we give away
is redeemed only by the heart we scratch beneath.

whoever the hell you are
reading these wasted broken words right now,
forget everything else i have written.
turn this poem over:

see? i love you, too.

poet man (i: a ball of string)

he is his cat.

he has this ball of string he bats about
worry is the word i'm looking for
i should go back and change line 2 but
part of me insists that every mistake
is a pure form of utterance
and every revision a lie
calculated to hide the honest ugly
of my mind. so as i was saying

he worries

this ball of string this scrap of cloth
this little nothing fished from under the sofa
where only tiny claws could reach
where no-one ever vacuums.
he has it. he worries it.
he worries he might actually be

normal.

that all this restless energy
this industrious assiduous creativity is just
an act he puts on
like a towel a scrap tied around his throat
to make a hero cape. poet man!
but all the world knows. and is laughing at
the underpants on the outside.

he worries--like i said--that he might just be
normal.

do normal people worry this? that they are
what they are? the fact that he worries
this ball of thread itself suggests that

normal

is not whatever he is
which leads to the counter-concern
that he is weird.
that all this sea of sounds is just
the thump of a poorly tuned engine
the whining friction of a fan belt turned too tight.

how comforting to live in a binary world
where everything not in is out
and everything not right is just
a short trip away from the curb
where garbage elves will whisk it away
to faerie land.

what i've been meaning to say

i have not been totally honest
or rather i've been telling truths that are irrelevant
hiding the meat
hyping the condiments
waving my hands
to distract from my eyes
all 'look over there!' when really
it's all here inside.

i keep writing love songs
and leaving out the names
hoping the 'you' and the 'me' are obvious;
but pronouns are just loose change,
just shorthand,
just quicksand
where we lose first our particular shoes
then slowly our legs, our hips, our thighs
and even that's just me
resorting to my instinct to generalize
when what i'm really trying to do
is describe exactly you
to unscrew a pen cap
and freehand a road map
of the curve of your nose
the first time i really saw it:

that new year's eve, at the obligatory party.

you on the sofa, me on a cushion
in the middle of the room of my own private ocean
playing that game with the sharks
in the carpet
where if i touched a toe down
they would tear me to bits
autumn had waned into winter
but i was already springtime
all curved lines and anxiety
wondering if a girl like you could see
the trees growing wild
inside a guy like me
who played badly at cool
loved madly but foolishly silent and slow
who brushed his teeth twice before
daring to phone you to ask if you'd be there
so i wouldn't have to be there alone.

and yet there i was
knees drawn up to my chest
hoping you would suggest
i come over and join you
hoping you'd yawn and rest
your head on my lap
so i could stroke your hair
at the stroke of midnight,
hoping for once
i could start the year right
right beside you and your body
close enough to whisper your name
so nobody would hear it but you,
hoping i could privatize our public lives
could get inside your head
and your levis, hoping i
could dive into you. imagine
my surprise when you
read my mind and smiled
threw down a cushion that bridged the miles
of open sea around me
it astounded me then
as it still does now
that you could see the future
where i just saw tea leaves
that you said yes before i knew
what question i was asking.

so i take back every song i have written,
redact every poem with your name not yet in it
and swear on my heart
and the forests that grow there
to renounce all my pronouns
and celebrate the sound
of your name:

Cathy.

enamel (time enough)

smiling doctor mark informs me
every six months, give or take,

that the grooves in my molars
come from my hands. it's my fault.

i grip the brush too tight.
i dig the bristles in.
i try too hard to scrape away
the day before i sleep at night.

odd to consider the toothbrush
that most useless of cleaning tools
can--given time enough and hands
too persistent, too rough--erase

the enamel of my teeth.
harder than bone, they are.
i read somewhere that i
(hypothetical i at least)

could chew through my wrist
if i needed to. a persistent
back and forth, a wearing away
of parts. it's all about a willingness

to meet the coarse material
of life with a spirit of resistance.
it's all about a willingness
to work at what needs working.

to kill what needs killing.
it is never too late to start.
with time enough
we can erase any mistake.

Startle Reflex

every morning i awake
with a gasp
fling my arms wide
to grasp hold
of something--you,
the bedpost,
a branch in a tree
that i have been falling from
a thousand generations now
always falling
never reaching the ground

every evening
i tuck myself tight
into bed, pull the blankets up
under my chin
and wait for the dark
for the dream of the canopy
wait for the wind
to come whistling my name
always calling
for me in the night

every child
is born with this gift,
this curse, this reflex
to reach out when frightened
and catch hold
of anything
that might save them.
every child knows
the sharp intake of breath
in the air over water
a bird in a nest
over soft, muddy rivers
a memory of wings
a need to be held
close when the wind
shakes the branch.