When Headlines Crack an Egg in My Face 

Who can say what is true? Lean too far left and I’m a gate off its hinges,
too far right, I’m the fence post without a copper cap. Whatever mooring
I had trampolines between deluge and deluge, somersaults through
jumping jack news, fizzles on bare light bulbs, leaves scriptures
written with ashes pulverized into diamond glitter, which is a shame
because restoring faith is not glitzy. A scavenger of history, I search
for ballast, and remember my parents fought, and lived through, a world war.

I watch the night creep along a wall like a lizard doing lizard push-ups,
and I wait in a corner for morning, for order—
but when I hear plums calling from cold storage, on the border
of desiccation, wanting to be baked, wanting to know what the hell…
I tell myself: go deep as magma, be like plankton, orcas, kelp,
let the ocean flock your ear and weld to it a sheaf of music that bears
just one note, in the key of, start here…

 

 

 

 

Apostrophe—

as in, turning away—farewell
invented world, sustainable
pause and reflection, we’ve partitioned you.

We said détente and meant proliferation.
We said containment and treaty
all the while, siphoning up oil. Farewell

known world: Ishi of the Yahis, pawpaws
and honeybees, we’ve abandoned you.

We are chillaxing while hash-tagging,
capitalizing each moment. Hijacked,

our faces bend to images—
people blown up, beheaded,
gunned down, on screen. Viral.

We are open-sourced, nerve-wracked, networks,
flickering and finite. Whatever beams

brought us into being, wave and particle—
carbon, vapor, breath, we are all spirits

upon this rock. Open-mouthed,
say together, which was once, to gather.