Relativity

If Einstein was right, 

then there is no long straight

string of time

and everything is cyclical

boundaries in flux, beginnings

and ends mutable, or nonexistent

and who’s to say that as I lean

over the sink its particles don’t

expand to accept a few of mine 

and we don’t become intertwined 

for a moment or few or

that the paste doesn't serve as some

emulsifier between enamel and bristle,

combining tooth and brush

and eliminating plaque in between

and how, then, can I know what

is over? or what has just begun? 

if the events before ever ended

or if we have always wanted each other

brushed our teeth side-by-side

slept together every night 

wished for the same things

but won’t ever end up.

I.

"You want to smoke a cigarette with me?"

"Yea"

We sat in the car, two people

who hadn't spoke in months.

"What are you doing next year?"

"How is the house?"

"When does the album come out?"

We sat in the car, two people

who had known each other for years

and hurt each other enough to be strangers again.

II.

"you take these shears here and cut the 

rose bushes down to the base"

"daddy, there are still buds on these"

"yea but you've got to cut them down 

before the snow comes, so they can grow back."

III.

The leaves weren't even done changing,

and had barely started falling, when

the forecast said snow on saturday 

and the wind chill supported its claim.

The snow would come and kill all 

the potential of the rosebuds

if I didn't kill them first. 

And I had to trust that they would grow back again.

Things will get much worse before they get better. 

Turn, Turn, Turn

I loved that apartment

with its tiny kitchen, your

bike resting along the wall under the clock

like it was waiting for the seasons to change

the ice-slick front steps and

the back door that we always hoped

was open. The two small rooms were

just enough and the bathroom was

my favorite yellow. 

We'd stay up late and listen

to the foreign neighbors, dancing

or fighting, and we'd wake late 

too. Make the short walk to

the corner because you didn't 

have a coffee pot and tea never 

did the trick for me. 

It was cold then. Colder than 

I remember it ever being. The 

walk was not so bad though, 

because the pocket of your pea coat

had a silky lining and I was always

allowed to put my mitten there.

But that was winter love. A cold

and factual kind. And it went away before

spring. It felt right. The same way that

fall creeps up. Leaves turn and fall a 

few at a time. Branches grow out of

them and don't throw fits or beg them

to stay. 

The kind of change that lets you look

back fondly. And say:

that was right, in its season.

Joshua Trees, desert near Kingman, AZ

Blessing

Child, I am writing to apologize,

though you cannot yet read,

for every moment I have been rough with you.

Seventeen years your senior,

I know too well the moments that

life will be rough with you. Without apology.

Child, I am writing to apologize,

though you may never remember,

for every time I have been impatient with you.

For the preschool rush, the hastiness

on with the shoes and out the door

for snatching you up and snapping you

into your booster seat, your little feet

swung from their spot before you could

examine the cicada in the driveway that scared you.

No doubt the largest insect you had ever seen,

it glistened holographic on the asphalt in the near-noon sun.

When I hurried you into the car and drove away,

dismissing your curiosity with a sharp lie:

"its just a big bug"

I failed to explain that fantastic root dweller

who emerges only once every seventeen years

to molt its skin and begin its adult life.

May you always have time and forgiveness.

May you be surrounded by people more willing

and worthy than me, to explain the trivial and fantastic-

ready to revel with you in the smallest wonders. 

May you blossom, emerging from this home

brilliant and beautiful to rise high above this asphalt,

and may you not wait 17 years to see another cicada.

The prairie underscores the bright blue

of the 10 a.m. sky and a train slices

the whole scene diagonally:

running beside the long straight

black of route 66

carrying the cogs to some massive

machine that makes another part

of the world run

but not this part

if every train stopped and every

telephone pole fell and all the

wires tangled in sparks on the

ground, nothing would change here.

These red rocks

thick clay

scrub bushes

lean hawks

don't mind.

Laws of Nature

Two men hang glide near the dam

they swing on the wind

blown dandelion seeds

then drop

all red and yellow parachutes

and crumple on the ground.

Two girls drive through the desert

top down

all Joshua trees and sand

heads turning all directions

the dead parts dropping off.

The west canyon rises high

and hard into the clouds--

the only objects casting fat shadows

in the noon sun.

The dam restrains the gushes,

human laws for wild things.