December dawn
a blue ring dances
beneath the teapot
fresh snow
on a withered fig
the eyes of a deer
also
in this hurricane
ensō
a splash of Shiraz
the wail of
a wounded dear
puzzle peace
nothing about us
without us
Dupont Circle Metro
sunlight rings the bell
of a saxophone
brushing my nose
and her hair
morning breeze
at Woodley Park
the unbroken stillness
of an escalator
a taper of red
outside the grill
September sunset
AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION ON THE LIBERTY BRIDGE
Maybe you’ve already heard about how
one night I allegedly gave her a ring
of rust on the windowsill of her heart,
or how I never saw why her name could
begin with the number e, but let’s not
pretend that Emily, my beloved in cat glasses
and a floral sundress, didn’t hand me back
a bundle of fresh daisies, then dash
across a bridge—frfr—as my iPod
cued Ahmad Jamal’s cover of “Wave.”
Both waves and tears can be falling water.
A wave can be water or a flag rippling.
Some flags can be read. And surely as
the Em Dash is named for Dickinson,
before wrestling with her texts, maybe
I should’ve taken an ESL course: Emily
as a Spiritual Language. Perhaps she fled
because I couldn’t hope to see the difference
between semaphore & metaphor or
maybe because I couldn’t play a more
ephemeral chord, or perhaps she simply
longed for the longer fingers of a real pianist
to key the silent C of her efflorescence.
Maybe I crossed a cantilever bridge on a
“murmuring day” in May to toss a bouquet
of daisies into the Monongahela. Perhaps
a certain nose spent a few scents toiling
overtime in the olfactories, but why would
my Beloved dash after Jamal finished
fingering falling water? Here I should be
frank, right? Forget that, even if it’s true,
Did I mishear Emily due to the wavy sines
piercing my ears? Say in place of her neck
I nosed a bottle-blue scarf she’d left
on the arm of a sofa? Any steel cantilever here
could only hold up reality. How could I have
divined farewell before she high-heeled
out the door? Before late sunlight outlined
her path and I began to believe in God
as a magenta metaphor or sugar pill? I still
can’t hear any tears as more than waves
of salt water under the bridge of my glasses.
Didn’t Emily beg us to “dwell in possibility” ?
Is it too late to pretend I didn’t notice Jamal’s
next song before crow’s wings darkened the day’s
eye & Ahmad put the amal in jamal with a refrain
that dissolves into the fragrance of daisies?
