National Poetry Month: Two Poems

Company


That’s how I know who I love:
I hate them.

I want to be in here
with the door closed
for them to be out there
when I’m ready.

They made me angry. That’s how
I describe them. That’s what
I close the door against. 

I already know what they think.
I won’t repeat it, for their privacy,
but suffice it to say
they are wrong about me. 

***

Company


It really is a lovely and clarifying
tradition I participate in,
having eyes and skin. 
It makes green 
the tree and darkens the walk.

I am unruly at thinking,
looking down a street
or I gasp, seeing 
a wasp near my window
trying to escape the rain.

That I am alarmed and it 
is alarming is to me
a comfortable symmetry.

I was watching people
move. The rain came
and they escaped
my gaze. I watched
the same car drive 
both ways.

They had been filling 
a metal pod. The door
of the pod came down
like gauze, and I could see
what brand it was.

I wonder how they chose that 
company.