2005 (CD available sometime summer 2009)

Walking  (or maybe dancing)

and it seems

there is nothing left but walking

past stores, empty stores, luncheonettes

taxi stands and bus stops

past cars on the street and in the lots

past schools

and fields and coaches screaming

walking

into low hills covered with trees

away from the city

toward that space between trees

where light chapels the ground

where walking simply matters more

than books or sleep

or maybe even jazz

even jazz

floating out through Newark

down McCarter highway

past the airport, Ikea

the German butcher, bars, bodegas

to my desk here on the fourth floor east

Coltrane’s Favorite Things

tuning through my brain

as if the music is all

but we live

not by jazz alone,

live by walking, too

dancing, perhaps, inside

walking

across busy desks 

past offices, down stairs

through cafeteria, library, vestibule

to sidewalk, street, road, path, field and scrub

dry stream bed and deer track

into low hills covered with trees

a walking

long-step

slow-step   

Giving of Names

To our sons of course

but also to each other

secret names we use at breakfast

and names for at lunch

the names our friends hear us use—

I don’t need to say them.

But maybe even you’ve

never heard some aloud, like

girl I love today like a bowl of dark cherries and

secret place where I hide from all knowledge

twenty year wife I married this morning

My name for you as you drink black coffee

and my secret name for when you spoon in the hazelnut

that even I cannot pronounce.

The names for the ways we love each other—

            love that gets up on Saturday to feed the cats

love that does the dishes

            love that stands beside and dries

            love that works shit jobs so I can do a little less

            holding hands while our son sleeps love

            and cooking Sunday night for Tuesday love.

            Love that buys CDs only the other will like

            love that defragments all night long.

love that dances in the living room and needs no music

and it is good to smell beach salt on you love.

Names that rarely escape my lips

            soft one who makes me want to live forever 

            wonder of hip where my hand rests while you sleep

            owner of smiles I cannot measure

            my strength.

And names so secret I cannot tell myself

for they make me miss you too much

while you’re still here,

incantations

that once uttered

won’t let me say goodbye

to go to work

go to the next room

names that ripple like water, silk and yellow roses

names I cannot name this here, this now

It's Time to Clean the Cat Box

It's time to clean the cat box.

The kids are shouting in the hallway.

There's laundry on the floor,

and garbage goes out tonight.

Forty-six students are waiting

for me to grade their tests.

The grass hasn't been cut in three weeks

and I balanced the checkbook two years ago.

I want a cup of coffee, but the cups are dirty

and the spoons are in the dishpan

under the dirty plates.

The teflon pan is burned to black,

and the scrubby thing is lost.

The kids have got to get to bed

and I have to grade those tests.

Forget about the living room.

It can wait another week,

and so can the bath.

It's time to clean the cat box.