I hold up mirrors
as shields to reflect
what I’m expected
to be: brother,
father, teacher,
lover, friend.
These apparitions
flow through
me like fish
slowly nibble
the bait clean
from the hook.
I’m only myself,
when nothing’s left.
(April 3, 2019)
From “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
Caught in a tight
spiral of self-loathing,
I try to scrape
and cut away
memory,
like a benign tumor.
Yet, I return and return
to each malignant moment,
and paint my face
in ritual guilt,
as if one could absolve
the past, and be free.
(February 12, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
As I teach my students,
I try to be honest
in who I am;
yet, fear
I’m a fraud.
Teaching’s resistance:
how to read,
analyze,
break meaning from words–
then rewrite
in the students’ voices
without becoming
a lie that exalts
the life
they are not.
(February 7, 2019)
As if braille,
I cannot be traced
Without a quick
Flutter of fingers
Across the page.
Even as I hide
Within words,
My handwriting,
Like kudzu, disguises
My intent.
I don metaphor
And stand still
To cloak certainty
In comfortable
Deniability.
My whispers are
My camouflage—
Hints and misdirection
Like bells nearby
In the dark.
(December 3, 2018)
Often while reading,
I scan the words,
turn the pages,
and then the book
vanishes, and I vanish,
aware of nothing.
To hold nothing,
and have nothing hold,
I desire this freedom–
a breath unnoticed,
as it is
ubiquitous:
Radiant, without center,
I cannot name
my discontent.
A wind, at my ear,
stills as I turn;
yet, still’s nearby.
(November 4, 2018)
Somewhere, not here
A field lies open,
Unframed, without
Mind, as if lost,
Waiting on ritual.
In Increments,
I have changed.
Each day dawns
Into itself;
There is no other.
Hear, and here
As well, I
Still seek
Her across
These echoes:
She followed
A fragile winter
Ice across a lake.
I am cold; the wood
Grown dark.
(October 30, 2018)
“She is a forgery.”
–Anne Carson
since
she fears
she will be
discovered
as
so much
less
then she appears,
she revises
her lines,
practices
improvisations;
until,
she vanishes.
(October 23, 2018)
