Saturday, November 22, 2008

Burial at Sea

What sound does a soul make when it goes down the hole? Is this a rhetorical question?

This keeps happening:

In the field outside
Mist gathers in little clutters
Unswept. It glitters and sags.

Nothing in my life is very tidy.
The stamp collection from when I was 12
Blows off the shelf in a windstorm
Of colorful, cancelled leaves.

I am older than I was yesterday.
When Lisa calls on the phone, casually blank,
I don't care. It hurts.

Shaving, I cut someone else's face.
The watery blear of blood flows away from him,
Down the well-formed hole in the porcelain
Made for the purpose.