Two Poems

Japanese Whiskey

A haystack of second chances
piled in the driveway
like a pyramid of leaves. I climbed
the cul-de-sac’s highest weathervane

to launch myself off and test its cushion.
How much take, take, take before pricked
by something hypodermic?
The girl insisted–she sat next to me,

gave me a handjob on the bus
on our field trip to see Death of a Salesman.
She had a gnarly scar horizontal
on her bronzed midriff

from when her father–half-drunk–
ran her over with his car
while she lay suntanning on a beach towel
in the driveway, headphones over her ears.

Older, she bought a wood-framed house
with a two-car garage. Dead-set
on living and living large.
Until the only thing

she could hold with a steady wrist
was a neat amber nip of Japanese whiskey.
Lazy summers get lazier
until they fall asleep come September.

If the sealed asphalt could speak, unmuzzled
by tar, I doubt we would hear much more
than what screeching tires tend to say.
Purr of a lover, icy stare,

needle drop of intonation,
merchant mariner squawking AIS.
Long division of signal from noise.
What a wonder the nude maples

keep accepting Spring’s invitation
to resume the rote racket–
sprout crimson buds supplely verdant,
ablaze with the feral blood

of the heavens before hibernation.
Silent until felled, timbered echo.
Wrong place at the wrong time.
Dead wood buried alive.

Listening for the signal
to do it all over again.

***

Not an Answer

He did not have an answer
to the question, why do you want to die
where you came from? Why make

the titanic effort to uproot one last time
from progressively warmer climes, over
the years, back to what might be called

home? With its unforgiving winters,
its indifference that you left. Its deaf ears
to your renunciation. Cannot be in honor

of our ancestors–scattered as they were,
as they are. The two tattered coasts,
four corners of the continent,

the saline pool in alias as sea.
Seriously. Why the inconvenience–
the boxing and unboxing, updating

addresses, activating utilities,
smiling wearily at new doctors,
new strangers at the supermarket?

Why the song and dance to explain
in terse terms to your family, shorthand
for devotion? When you can taste that

particular sugar on any sweet air
anywhere. Why not ride off into
this here sunset, milk the low-interest rate

on this steal of a mortgage? Why not
let the wheels come off the fucking thing,
laugh as the sun again puts on a brave face

this morning, fuming its doomed eternity?
Maybe this is roost incarnate; maybe this
is returning to seed. Where it all started,

full circle to fertilize the soil that sprang you.
Rags to richer rags seen through the same
childish eyes. There will be no parade.

Maybe this is balm to your love
never barren, a concession
to the dull blade of comfort

you now cease to fear
burrowing under your skin.