The Fumble
Once upon a time
a girl called me to say her father died
my mouth dried up
and I blurted out all the formal expressions
but it sounded inadequate
and the more I said
the more it felt I was fumbling it
I still think of that conversation
and remember my regret
— more than her father’s death
my fumbling reaction to it.
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The Thing I Hate Most About My Father
The thing I hate most about my father
is that for all this time
as I have tried
swimming away from him
with all the mutinous thrashing of limbs,
now bewildered,
I see myself being sucked back
like a whirlpool
into him
indistinguishable
and then he wins.
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Love
Love is logistics
if by chance you could get past
the chaos of the minds
(‘meh, too ordinary’)
the chaos of the hearts
(‘ugh, too desperate’)
there is still the task of carrying that baby
across the raging river
on a stormy night
and you are barefoot with nothing.
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Sci fi
As we watch a sci fi movie
and dissect it to its fibers through its runtime
over peanuts and diet coke
in J’s living room
I am glad we make jokes
and laugh
unconstrained and honest
through the slipping hours of the day.
Laughter does make the ‘simulation’
more endurable
just as sadness makes it more believable.
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Running
On a dark road
snaking through trees
I run on this dewy evening.
The moon hangs round and fat in the sky
and the wind makes the sweat on my shirt
feel cold and thick
I want to sit somewhere and take it in
but there is nothing around
So I keep running
even though
there is nothing I would love more than to stop.