REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING

When I wake at last from a hundred-year nap,
my wife is still on the phone

attempting to reason
with the Disputes Department,

and our daughter,

the beautiful, black-haired barista
who lives in a distant city,

is finishing up a double shift.
Her back was turned to me

throughout my dream,
her sun-brown shoulders shaking

as if she were crying.
Was it the small table of ghosts

that so upset her,
or had she seen reflected in the metal surfaces

water birds stumbling about on land?
Nothing is more stupidly honest than failure.

The spruce tree may become a cello,
but the heart – the heart chokes on its own blood.



or the shadow of the photographer
falls crookedly across the child in a photo,

or minutes turn into days,
and days into nine leafless oaks.

WHAT NOT TO WEAR

I have only one suit,
and it hangs

at the back of the closet.
I have a pair of black

lace-up shoes
to go with it.

I have a white shirt
still in the plastic bag

from the cleaners.
I have several ties,

but little occasion
to wear them.

I have a lucky pen
and a red writing pad,

and when I step out,
into the bright

blankness of the day,
I carry them in the pocket

just above my heart.