poem

 Recurring Nightmare

Some people have recurring nightmares 

Where they can’t stop falling

Others are haunted by dreams 

Of spiders or swarms of bee stings.

Mine is me crawling on all fours

Deep into a cave cut into the side

Of a craggy old mountain.

There is a steady downward slant

And the passage gets narrower and narrower. 

I’m wearing a lighted helmet that shows me

Exactly where I’m going but I keep going

Anyway. The walls are a spiral stairway

Zeroing in on one-dimensionality

While the ceiling and floor slowly succumb

To a long denied mutual physical attraction.

It gets harder and harder to move.

I can't turn around.

It ends with a sharp decline 

I slide down until I’m caught

In the cold embrace of stone

Carved to accept every angle 

And curve of my now trapped body.

In the dream I’m smiling, lips flush

Against their perfectly arched space.  

It’s only during waking life,

Seeing how happy I seemed,

That it starts to feel so terrifying.

7/31/26

poem

 Gossip

1.

When it’s all over

It’s either a total silence

That swallows time 

Or you hear muffled voices 

On the other side 

Of a closed door

And no matter how hard

You press your ear

Against the cold steel

You can’t make out a word.

2.

Hell is knowing

They’re probably 

Talking about you

3.

Heaven is understanding

Language is a wave

Washing over edges

Of massive continents 

Of silent meaning.

Eventually there’s nothing left

But a gray wet sand 

Extending sideways in both directions

As far the universe is long. 

4.

To the left are footprints

Emerging from the sea.

To the right is nothing

But smooth sand,

Patiently waiting

To be disturbed.

7/31/26

poem

 Joe Black

In the movie Meet Joe Black

Death, as played by Brad Pitt,

Falls in love with the daughter

Of the older man he came to fetch.

It isn’t as ridiculous as it seems.

Life is always pretending to be 

Someone new every single day.

My clinic, in fact, was full of the living

And there were a few moments—

Old Mrs. Liebling’s comfort dog

Putting his paw on my knee

While I rubbed his scruff—

When life became me.

7/26/26

poem

 Button

There’s a button for everything.

Push it and something happens.

Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not.

If you like it, you keep pushing it.

You can push it too much, though.

One day nothing happens.

Someone says, check the batteries

But that’s the first thing you did.

They were fine,

But you changed them anyway.

You just want to change the channel,

Put something else on,

Turn up the volume.

You get to a point where

All you want is to be able

To turn it on and off.

On

Off

On 

Off

Push the button

7/26/26

poem

 On Call

Squirrels dart skittishly

Across the back lawn

Like surgical interns 

My grass is a cancer

Stealing vertical spaces.

It keeps growing and growing

Wasps and yellow jackets swoop

Like suture needles sewing

Quilts of marigolds

The rain is excisional debridement

Washing away the dusty remains

Of another wasted afternoon.

The children on the swing set

Are also patients.

Soon I’ll have to make rounds.

The woman sitting in the kitchen 

Had an appointment an hour ago.

She waits patiently.

7/26/26

poem

Typical Tuesday

It happens so fast. And then it’s over. Change is the constant. Every room on rounds is a different patient. Tell me why you ended up here. My husband brought me.  I called 911. My sister said enough is enough. I put all the details in my note. Yes, it’s not fair. Suffering is rarely earned. I think I can help. Here’s your options. This is what I think. Even if you pay attention, or want to, it's too much to keep track of. I see everything in each shifting moment. If I try to remember it, I lose it. Stay with me. Don’t leave. But I have to. Someone else needs me. The OR is calling. Patient on the table. The third hernia. The second gallbladder. When I get home you ask about my day. I say it was fine. It was the usual. Nothing special. Typical Tuesday. You nod your head and the kitchen ticks with the existence of appliances. You start to make dinner.  I go through the mail.  The absence of details is a chasm we are falling into. I’m not doing it on purpose. It almost feels like weightlessness. I wish you had been there, taking notes. I wish you were there to see. But there’s so much that happens. How do you expect me to remember all that? For most of it, I was barely there. It frisked me like a subway thief and hopefully got what it needed. What are we here for but to give it all away? I have more than I deserve. Meanwhile I’m already out the door, on my way to the next. So I go home and write. The only difference between the floor and the ceiling is the weak force of gravity. Whatever I get down saves fragments of my own life.  Weeks later, it’s like reading a stranger’s journal. If someone else reads it, well, maybe it happened. If it’s you then I know it’s real.

7/21/26

poem

 Fallen Angels

There is a sect of believers

Who accept the divine mercy 

Of God but only on the condition

They never get sent to heaven

As the ultimate reward when they die.

So off to hell they go.

Like everyone else, the heat catches

Them by surprise and, yes, there is wailing

And, yes, there is the gnashing of teeth 

But not for as long as you might think.

Soon their space is filled with silence 

As they learn to bear their torments 

With a quiet endurance right there

In the darkest, most sulphurous 

Corner of hell. 

Soon, they begin to be noticed

By the rest of the damned

Inspiring fleeting literacies 

Of hope and possibility 

Which Satan sniffs out and extinguishes 

Quicker than love unrequited.

But first words are never forgotten

And the sounds they make when spoken 

Become the skeletons of catechismal hymns 

And the alphabet invented to capture them

Is also used to construct a sacred

Book of scripture and prayers.

By now everyone in hell can read

But it doesn’t really matter

Because they already know this

Low church liturgy by heart.

They bow their heads and inch 

Closer to the dark holiness inexplicably

Carved from orchestral dins of despair.

None of them can really see beyond 

The blinding white singe of their own pain

Let alone the black void 

Standing in the way of absolute truth 

But they know in their hearts

That someone is verily there.

In the other world, these martyrs

Cloaked in darkness kindling

Nascent forms of faith

Amongst the suffering masses

Would be known as saints.

But here it is much more—

Even God Himself is starting to believe.

7/20/26

poem

Vespers

I throw stones at stained glass

Windows just to let the colors out

 

I mix up the words to prayers

Just to have a reason to swear

I sanctify every moment 

By forgetting it ever happened 

In the early morning darkness

The insects sound like psalms

Matins is just me and the dogs

Pissing in the dark wet grass

Vespers is clouds and thunder

On the night of the blood red moon

7/20/26 

poem

 Coffins

Every morning I lie down in a hole 

In the ground in the shape of someone

Else's body, not comfortably, for it’s

Far too small but it gives me a renewed

Appreciation for all the other spaces

Where I seem to belong.

(Not like there’s many of those)

There’s no claustrophobia in the womb.

Fetuses are allowed to presume

The universe will always adjust 

To the shape of their own bodies 

Which is why newborns, arms and legs

Flailing, always appear to be falling.

One of the weaknesses of freedom

Is the absence of walls and ceilings

Defining the limits of existences

Which explains the persistent

Popularity of coffins

Even amongst the living.

7/20/26

poem

 Quantum Love

In quantum love 

We end up together

Even though we never

See each other again 

It all depends on luck—

Some stranger catching us

In the corner of his eye 

From the other side of the room

Once we’re observed 

We’ll be forced to choose

One way or the other.

But no one is ever looking.

In quantum love

We live together, happily,

Only miles and miles and miles

Apart.

It’s either an inside 

Joke only we can share

Or I’m laughing

All by myself

7/20/26