Final Separation (1)

This is my response to her poem, about us- that us which has become I and, unconnected and ever more distant, she.

I do not and did not and might not ever
Believe in fore-sight, defined:
Prediction of predilection, satisfaction in knowing the future.
You could have been the girl, right here—
Who was I to presume,
Who were you to assume?
Just know the following fact:
I have counted;
Your place was significantly greater than last.

All I never asked for:
Your patience and patency,
Trust and tranquility,
Confidence and cooperation.
Love might have made it work,
If only you knew, not that I did,
That love should go beyond us,
Self-less, take-less, care-less,
Care-free.

I can’t say I didn’t miss you, sometimes don’t miss you, but we are destined for distance.

Leaving Home (Prose Poem?)

He hears little except the light chirping of the birds, the dulled protest of cicadas, and the awakening of the grass as the sun rises. But in his head, there are voices and suggestions enough.

Opening his door with an experienced grasp of hand, he steps from the emptiness of his room to the cluttered space of the home. No one is awake yet.

He grabs his backpack, not much to take, and walks towards the back door.

Outside, he squints in the brightness; maybe it will be a hot day here, and his father has surprised him once again. The man is standing there, a straight back and neck. As his father turns around, their eyes align.

No words are spoken. The man removes a large gold ring with a black stone in the center and hands it to him; as he wears it, he notices that it is heavier than it looks with edges smoothed by the passage of time.

He reaches forwards and hugs his father and stops breathing to hear him breathe.
After a few moments, he walks away. But then he stops after a few breaths to turn back and look at the man he might one day become. He hears no breaths.

The Scientist (I)

It mocks me,
Eyes colder than liquid nitrogen,
Nothing left kindled in its stare;
I grow tired of standing on the shoulders of men
Who turned out to be dwarfs and not giants,
On tiptoes, buoyed by significant correlations,
I turn a sharp monotone of phrase
But cannot reach, cannot breach at
All, just to see the face of the one
Who brings me no peace,
Just pieces and particles that bear no names,
The type of work that drives on me,
Inspires madness and sadness and laughter,
The sound of spinning and grinding
And cutting and binding
Me.

Cell Culture

An unspecified suspension
(Pink, sometimes sallow)
Always elicits his attention
(Strident, never shallow)

A conical kind of life
(Sustained quality, not size)
Passages between his eyes
(Downward bent and filtered)

We can’t see them, he says,
I believe they are there.

Dissection (II)

Her first cut. Dull.
But penetrating the skin
So soft and so easily sliced
The tiny elastic tendrils, the embrace.

She wields the blade. Quivering
Cadaver carved into skin and flesh
Never again one tissue, one body,
One person.

Her knife fails against the yellow sheath,
Webbed by blue and red, vasculature once.
Beautiful work. Intimacy apparent in
Her face, taut with satisfaction.

She can no longer recognize him or hate him for who he was.