Fine

You speak in code that no heart breaks.
How are you this sunny, windy day?

Fine

I know the day is fine, but you:
I cannot tell, you know.
Your Fine is impenetrable.

I can suspect that on your island
you feel wind cutting into tearducts.

What is this Fine, this wall of code
no intuition breaks?

I know I could suspect the worst:
torture it out of you
with more pain than you inflict on yourself.

Would your confession
extracted on the rack in this fine dungeon
you have sentenced yourself to
tell more than your iron mask hides?

I want to shake you out of your smeltered Fine:
give you some way to spring off that
waterboard that is your daily routine,
see you breathe two successive breaths
of sunny, windy oxygen.

But you are Fine you say.

There is flint in the essential silence
that puddles around your Fine—
some day that oil will ignite:
Fine will be Fire
but I will be on a different island.

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Doorways

“What am I doing here?” You say.
You find yourself in the back bedroom,
and can’t remember why.

If only passing through were so easy:
some doorways recede even as you approach;
some rooms drag along with you:

the blood, the screams, the disbelief
are invisible engines
unspeakable hammers that nail us in.

“What am I doing here?” You say.
You find yourself in the black blood room
and must remember why.

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Sing a Song of Suspense

Before my wife says
let’s go grocery shopping
before woman say
you hunt or baby starve
before pyramids and capitalism
before Walmart and corner store
before one percent and ninety-nine
before computer and abacus
before global warming and fireside chats
before bombs and canons and arrows
before rocks and affidavits
before child soldiers and missionaries
before rape gangs and immigration
genocide and standup comics
there must have been love in the world.
I know, because my wife smiles as she says
Let’s go grocery shopping.
But whatever happened to the world’s smile?

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