Rat, dying

Smoke break. Whatever else,
It’s a way of killing time. We’re miles
from twelve, still further from five.
The surgeon general’s warning
is mute about these mornings.

You know the ones I mean.
They’re all the same, once eight-
o-one puts the fat guy on our necks.
We step out to the sidewalk
for smokes and mutinous talk.

It’s there we witness this
slow-motion dance in circles—
no—pretzel-shaped pirouettes
on the cement. No question:
the little prick ate poison.

Well, it was meant for him,
and this was the end intended.
Nobody wants rats around.
And time means nothing to a rat,
but this is slo-mo for all that.

A slight aroma of disquiet
floats among our flicking ashes.
(Only sickies enjoy suffering.)
A few more threats to the fat jerk,
then it’s crushed butts. Back to work.

House Fire

There’s an ineluctable,
and at the same time
fugitive intimacy
in watching your own house
burn down on videotape.

Strangers in helmets
smashing windows with
axes: the most obvious
analogy (so let’s skip that)
would be with rape.

No. This is even more
impersonal; let it seem odd.
Here’s a monitor-full
of what the actuaries mean
by an act of God.

Dogs

My father and I fought like
cats and dogs over cats and dogs.
My father hated cats, so I hated dogs.
The old man is dead now. My wife
has dogs. Stanley the schnauzer
puppy doesn’t know that with
my father, I sided with cats
against dogs. He cocks his head,
looks up at me like I’m a live grenade,
waiting to see if my next move
might prove to be entertaining.
The old man is dead. I like this dog.

On Monroe Street

It’s a friendly barber shop all right,
just not in the best part of town.
The cheerful sign that faces the street
says “We want your business! Come on in!”
Once inside, you look around the walls,
and notice, twice, three times, no, four,
“We reserve the right to refuse service
to anyone.” Also, they don’t take checks.
Field and Stream and National Geographic
Are provided in tattered plenty, but
you might get turned away, and
It’s cash up-front, buster. No I.O.Us.

Growing Up At The Movies

Age 7: Wild cat attacks Walter Pidgeon
in Disney’s Big Red.
Runaway boy shoots cat in mid-air,
saving Walt.

Age 11: Chinese mob tears Mako to pieces
in The Sand Pebbles.
Dad doesn’t notice,
but I pull my ball cap over my eyes.
(Steve McQueen delivers
the coup de grace.)

Dustin Hoffman says “I’m
gettin' the goddamn hell out of here”
in The Graduate.
Dad winces at that,
wishes he hadn’t brought me.

Age 12: All the other kids are going to see
Bonnie and Clyde.
My mother won’t let me.
In Like Flint with James Coburn
and all those babes
just slips under her radar.

Age 13: I return home awestruck
on a Friday night
from 2001: A Space Odyssey,
need calming down
before I can go to sleep.

Age 14: In mid-sentence,
Strother Martin gets blown off his mule
in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
It’s a punch in the belly,
but I’m okay.

Age 17: After waiting a full year
to be old enough for
A Clockwork Orange,
my friend and I walk out afterwards
feigning boredom.

Age 18: Graphic beheading, blood
Splashing the camera,
In Papillon.
After Gregory Sierra gets impaled in the jungle,
I decide not to see this one again,
And never do.

Age 21: The Lollipop Girls
in Hard Candy.
(Hard times have forced our local
movie-house to go porno.)
Ah, but I’ve been drinking
before going in. No hard-on.

Age 47: Sweet Home Alabama,
(an afternoon matinee.)
I realize with an inward sigh,
that my paunchy, balding self
is now too old to be
Reese Witherspoon’s guy.

Long Road To Canaan

Walking together through Greenwich Village,
late one night, Charlie and I, we met people he knew.
He lived up on West 74th. What were the odds of
bumping into friends down here, in the small hours?

After 26 years in NYC he went home to California
to care for his aging mother. He’s an only child.
It was his watch that got turned back, his senses
that had to reset: ocean sunsets rather than dawns.

The neighbors across the street are friendly,
maybe too friendly, he thinks out loud.
They mean nothing to him, are not the sort
he’d want to encounter on the street, ever.

But they haunt his porch with insinuating smiles,
bringing their daughter (the grandchild his mother
never had) for visits. Christmas dinner seems to
last for days. He describes it (awful!) on the phone.

Charlie keeps earlier hours these days, and
I know (without having to see eyes or hear sighs)
that he wishes he didn’t have to. Yes, it’s a long road
to Canaan on Bleecker Street. Elsewhere too.

Telophasia

Laughing in the lawyer’s office, jocular, nervous:
“You want me to decide what?” Well, we are
here to discuss wills and such things, after all.
A long look out the window. “All right. Send me
To Johns Hopkins, or someplace like that. Too far?
Someplace closer then. “‘Nearest medical
School.’” “Might as well serve some constructive
Purpose if I’m gonna go to the trouble of dying.”
Yuk-yuk-yuk. So that’s settled. Never have to
Think about it again. But then it begins to snow.
Down the river and around the bend is a bank
Where we said our goodbyes two years ago.
The more it snows, the more I’m inclined to think
About that morning, pouring ashes off those rocks
Into the river, and the great blue heron that appeared,
Soaring, like a seal of approval on the moment.
What to do now? The sky says little. But the insistence
Of this all-too-suggestive shower of snow,
Bearing within it so much that we shared and knew
When we were children here, is revving up thought
As the coffee perks. In a few days this will thaw,
And maybe I’ll think differently. But for now,
I’m wondering if it’s right that you should be alone
In having done that Anna Livia thing we chose.
Perhaps the right, ricorso, path would be for me to
Follow suit, pick up the phone and change
Direction. Afferents are ephemeral (don’t cringe);
Fear of heat should influence no decision
I might make, and besides, it was our river
As children, and as adults talking many years later.
I squeeze my coffee cup as I watch the falling snow.
It’s slippery, like the shovel-handle in the yard.

Burn The House Down

Since I left the valley of home I have not much feared any other loss.
—D.H. Lawrence

The year Vance and I both came home
for Christmas, we occupied bedrooms
at opposite ends of the hall. Vance had
health problems galore: in the middle
of the night he would go to the bathroom,
and the smell was so strong it woke me up.
But it was okay; we were under the same
roof, which didn’t happen very often,
in fact it never did again. In fact, it’s
all gone now, the folks dead, the house
sold, the hallway, the bedrooms,
the kitchen I still have on videotape,
with Mom slicing baked ham on my 37th
birthday, now the scenes of only voices
we never heard, or would ever want to.
The kids did the right thing at the end
of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? To spare
their dead, 500 lb. mother the indignity
of being removed by crane, they set a
match to the place. Roll the credits.
Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

Postcard

January 4, 1969 fell on a Saturday.
People marvel that I remember things like that,
but there’s no magic involved.
It’s just that I was an unusual child.

Whenever I would add a book
or a phonograph record to my collection,
I would write my name on the jacket or flyleaf
to make sure that whoever borrowed it
would know where to bring it back.
But I didn’t stop there. Beneath my name,
I would also write the date, the way you might
enter a new birth in the family Bible.

A heavy winter was underway,
and snow was deep everywhere.
I went with my mother to Shadle Center.
There, at the long-gone Record Rack,
I spent my allowance on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
by Simon and Garfunkel. When I got it home,
I found a felt marker and wrote my name,
and the date, on the cardboard jacket.

It’s gone. I gave that disc away years ago,
but for the years that I owned it, would often
turn over the cover and skim the liner notes
(noticing my name and the date)
when I put it on the phonograph to play.
The record went away, but the date remained.

January 4, 1969 was a Saturday,
a cold, gray, wintry day.
People think it’s phenomenal
that I can pinpoint things like that. But no;
It’s just that I was a child who thought
things like snowy days important,
and tried to save them, like postcards,
to be read over and over again.
Crazy? Autistic? Possibly so.
But though it hardly matters now,
it worked. I can tell you, it worked.

Wallace, Idaho

Last night snow fell all over western
Montana. The hundred miles from Missoula
was a slog through ice, slush and more:
passing trucks rained filthy salt spray.
The windshield wipers’ flip-flap, flip-flap
beat time to Bette Midler’s coast-to-coast
serenade of Peggy Lee on satellite radio.
You asked if we might stop and browse
the antique shops of downtown Wallace.
Gingerly I left the highway, went under
the trestle and into the town, where
when I braked, we kept going. A terrified
adagio, mimicking time itself in this place,
slid us gradually to a slanted stop.
We read silently from a license plate,
379 CTO, “Famous Potatoes,”
here at the glassy center of the universe.

Meets the Eye

Ragueneau would insist
that there’s more to him than this,
(and if anyone would know, he would.)
More that is than the curse
the cat hears across the hall
when Ragueneau’s glasses
slip to the bathroom floor
behind the half-closed door.
He’s quite surprised
to be told that there were
some who feared him. He’ll recall,
with gritted asides,
all the insults he’s taken, all the times
he allowed himself to be intimidated.
Now he sits rocking in a chair
beneath a blue spruce tree,
puffing a cigar, where the older cat
lies buried. “Hello,” he says
to the spot. He visits twice a day.
He regrets the waning fall,
says its angle of decline
is the only place he ever felt at home.

Signs Of Life

I have watched from the ground the
C-5s landing at Travis. God, how they hang,
hang in the air, like kites. Big as tankers,
weighing tons, how could they move
so slowly and not fall out of the sky?

Flip the picture: those lights, how much
I appreciate their slowness, their steadiness,
as we drop from the dark. Final approach,
with those falls, those bumps and dips
through cloud cover that numb confidence.

As palms bead up and pulses question
faith, we break down and through, and there
they come, anonymous, creeping along
the interstate in those blessed straight lines
of the will, that mean so much from here.

Generations

I had braces put on my teeth at an age
when my father had all of his pulled out.

The city is more care-worn than it was,
but more sophisticated too. You take, you give.

We rode the bus downtown in our youth.
The old stores are gone, but there’s a hot zone.

When we were boys, Chris and I, we wrote
poems that mentioned Steppenwolf, The Cream;

He’s done his duty now: family, career—
me, I’m still changing addresses.

Hollywood calls this “script continuity:”
My parents and grandparents died in the same house.

You take, you give. That’s the way it goes.

Falling Asleep In The Bathtub

The text begins to swim as the ceiling bulb
coalesces, becoming its looking-glass twin,
rather than a jizzilating blob of light.
The faucet similarly takes shape as sight
begins to dim. I place the book on the sink,
Surrender to the current. In a moment,
Marlon Brando is mumbling, and the
swiftly-tilting planet is on automatic pilot.

Life vs. Art

My half-brother Vance collected guns.
I visited him in Michigan once.
We broke out some of the firepower,
posed for pictures beside the black Olds
looking like we’d just robbed a bank.

Vance died in Phoenix, Valentine’s Day.
No massacre, though. His heart gave out
as he drove across an intersection.
Dead at the scene. Not a shot was fired.

Big Comet

History loves its comets. The fate of nations has turned
on these hairy ice-balls paying gravity’s debt to the sun.
Halley’s is a clever one—like Woody Allen’s Zelig,
It turns up everywhere, poking its way into the picture
as momentous things happen. In the Bayeaux tapestry
ISTI MIRANT STELLA captions the little cartoon figures
pointing in awe at this avatar of Billy the Bastard’s luck.
It ushered Mark Twain in and out, some stand-up comic’s spin
on the Nativity, with a punchline. He would have liked that.
But lately it seems big comets have lost their white plume,
quietly withdrawing from public life like God did.
Overhyped Kohoutek fizzled like a wet match in my youth,
and when Halley came back, the year I turned 31,
it failed to live up to its reputation, a tired old performer
who just wants to sit this one out, let the young take over.
The moon is pulling back, close to two centimeters a year.
Let us sit in a circle and praise big comets. I see a trend here.

Absence

(after a lute song by Thomas Morley, 1602)

Hear thou my protestation.
We’ve outgrown allegory, no longer
can address abstracts as if
they were troublesome neighbors.
What of it? I need only count
time-zones, and my heart does
the same on its fingers. Area codes
may change; lute strings broke.
Then course, there’s always e-mail.
Shakespeare didn’t have that.
No more need for spinning pirouettes
To make of absence a smile.
Too bad, come to think of it.

In The Round

The friend I call Ragueneau
(I have a cat who’s his namesake)
in the kitchen trying to pry
open a jar of sauerkraut:
“YOU DIRTY SON OF A
MOTHERFUCKIN’ WHORE!”
The next day he comes around
And shows me a sonnet he’s written.
I weep. I swear to God, I weep.

First Snow

Drop the leaf rake—(this is ravishment!)
And duck inside to enjoy the show.
Cradle your coffee cup, savor the moment.
Tomorrow’s forecast is “well above.”
Today’s dream: bus tracks, dog piss and slush.
Nothing yells “Carpe diem” like snow.

Coke Bottle

In the film we were watching that day
a Coke bottle tumbled out of the sky.
No one had ever seen one before.
Naturally, hilarious chaos ensued.
But as it spun out, I remembered
An evening in California, long ago,
Watching my sister and her cohort dance
Across the carpet, eyes closed, hands
on each other, high on the Lord’s presence.
Codex and Coke bottle both start with “C.”
Mine was smooth to the touch, deliciously
Curved, offering only a cooling drink.

Antique Shop

There it is again. That morning sun.
The off-white egg cup, yellow-rimmed,
its crowing rooster on a tiny fence.
How many mornings in Grandma’s
kitchen are encapsulated in that cup?

Enough to make me linger here
for a moment, alongside the Texaco
Fire Chief sign that must be someone’s
Christmas morning, frosty midday,
or string of slow-moving afternoons,
leaning on a mop in some service bay,
the foot-dragging wall clock, neon-lit,
circling over the bench, an angry wasp.

Do You Want To be Immortal, or Do You Want To Live A Long Time?

We’ve been quoting Keats for nearly two centuries.
The late Carolyn Jones, on The Addams Family, intoned
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” No question:
Keats is with us always. But now so is Hunt, his friend,
Whom he creamed in sonnet competition, and who was
Long considered a footnote. No more. Keats died at 26,
Coughing his lungs out in Rome. That’s literary legend.
Hunt made it to 75. Who knows where or how he died?
But they’re both on Wikipedia. So who’d you rather be?

Intelligent Designs

The biologists I hear are pitching the crapshoot as established.
But how is one to gainsay half a century in the halls of memory
And sense? I once heard an ambulance in Paris playing Scarlatti,
Once heuristically danced my way, in the space of half a second,
From the shape of the word “pleurisy” to an early Disney film.
And then there are the creative doings of Fulbright, my schnauzer.
He chomps on his chew toy; it goes squeak-squeak-squeak
In tones that suggest alarm. Later, in the bathtub, I recall
The music of nearly-genuine alarm that it resembles.
There’s the image so often recalled in color. Anthony Perkins
Rips back that shower curtain, starts beating time in blood.

Haunted House

I was unconvinced until we moved here,
But I’m running out of explanations.
That summer night the back door swung open
By itself could have been a faulty latch.
But what about all these noontime footsteps
On the stairway, which rouse the sleeping dogs,
And which I, thinking my wife has returned
From some errand, go and investigate,
Only to find that there’s nobody there?

I don’t think it’s the man who built the house
In 1891—he died elsewhere.
I’d like to think it’s one who once worked here,
Whose diligence, or dedication to
This place, brought him or her back to make sure
Everything is still in working order.
The footsteps approached the attic Monday,
Where I sat typing. “Nobody up here
But me and the dogs!” The sound of feet stopped.

Did I feel foolish, speaking out like that?
No, not really; these comings and goings
Have gotten as familiar as the old
Plumbing that creaks, moans and sometimes backs up.
Besides, he or she considerately
Avoids anything too over-the-top.
No ectoplasmic stunts, scaring our guests,
No late-night laughter, no blood in the sinks.
That broken vase downstairs? Probably the cat.

Barter System

Chewed-up tomatoes spoil my morning coffee.
A possum got into my patch last night.
He’s been hanging around here since spring:
Before I planted these beauties he’s ravaging,
He was stealing his breakfast every dawn
From the upper branches of my apricot tree.
(I caught him at it, waved. He didn’t wave back.)
Now I think maybe I can offer him a bribe.
If I give him a tomato, gratis, no charge,
Maybe he’ll leave the rest of them alone.
After dark, whiskey making my own craft
Seem cleverer even than it did this morning,
I park a solitary Better Boy atop the fence.
It works. Come light, that tomato’s turned to a twirl
Of possum shit. Deal done. He even left me a tip.

Spitting Cobra

Upward, twisting motion
Bears definition in its train,
Like conspiracy or not:
Particles whirl, galaxies swirl,
Sparks dancing upward from
Fire swirl. John Glenn saw
Fireflies in orbit, following
Friendship 7 as she tumbled
Around the world in 90 minutes.
Spitting cobra in the eye,
Poisonous, spirals into view,
A twirl of carbon unintended,
Groping eons of scintillation,
Lacking volition or desire.

Then again, reimagine:
A long train run
From spark to spit:
(Trains leave stations
and have destinations.)
Spitting cobra hovers,
A shadow in autumn light,
Hinted in the architecture
Of sun and spin: spiral arms
Bump back dark matter.
Spitting cobra as implication:
In the grass, somewhere,
(Grass, too, came from
somewhere) in the light that
might or might not shine for
eyes, like a bright afternoon
nightmare, spitting cobra
shimmers, glistens, behind
the dancing snow of static,
purposeful, wisdom coiled.

White Gold and Thunder (Coeur d'Alene Park, Spokane)

Everything out there, from the guy walking past
With his beard and backpack, to the petunias
and gardenias that stand athwart the front porch
Like lions, embraces white gold and thunder,
Or is embraced by them—you choose.
(If grief is a species of idleness, this works too.)
Like “Two-Buck Chuck,” (as much fun to say
As it is to drink), they shine, intoxicate, explode
And spectacularly include: white gold and thunder
Infuse the pine trees and the cones they drop,
Beer cans, grass and dogshit. Music in the park.

A Find

Cleaning out her room the next
Afternoon, we locate the suspects
We already knew about: 75 empties
In the dresser and under a blanket
Near her bed; 10 vicodin bottles
Among the dust bunnies underneath.

Then we get a surprise: we move
The bureau beneath the window,
The one alongside the derelict
Air conditioner, and with a thump,
A book that had been jammed back there
Slips to the floor. I pick it up.

Old Friends and Lasting Favorites,
The Golden Treasury of Children’s
Literature, 1961, Volume Four.
She was 47 when she died. What
Use would she have had for the likes
Of Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Aladdin?

Oh yes, I knew those books all right.
Mother bought them for us when we
Were kids ourselves; they’d stood
On the bookshelf in the dining room
For 40 years. How did that one
Get back here? Then I remember.

Ricky is 19 now, but was always
Tia Lynne’s favorite. “Binky,” she
Called him when he was newborn.
Later, sometimes as a weekend
Treat, he’d be allowed to stay
Overnight out in the granny flat

As his aunt’s guest. Cartoons, pizza,
And then, when it was time for bed,
Time to tuck him in on the couch,
Before going off herself to curl up
With a thick-glassed jug of E & J,
No doubt, yes, she’d read him a story.

Clearly, the book had somehow slipped
Behind that dresser and been forgotten
For ten years at least, probably more.
Thanksgiving: at the dinner table
I make a slip and mention her name.
Ricky goes into the kitchen to cry.

This is the price we pay for being
Old friends and lasting favorites:
Not hungry, I stand here hugging Ricky,
One of the unlucky family members
Shocked in the final, ironic moment
Of the one about the boy with the long name.

Cliches

These beauties were my own private arc
From solstice to equinox; nothing ideal
Here. No heroes, heroics; no Mystic Rose.
They ate up my plant food, drank my water,
Pricked my fingers all summer long.

I just read through a treatise about faith.
A friend wrote it, at great risk to his health,
Meaning he bumped into darkness visible
While it all fell together. He discussed Dante.
I’m staring, in the kitchen, at roses,
Possibly the last I’ll pick this year,
Just about to drop September petals,
Floating, moribund and glorious in glass,
The buds of the ripest ones, concentric.

It doesn’t take much to see these things
Expanding until they take everything in,
The Big Bang viewed from the top of the stairs.

Fished Out

Unused cold medicines stacked on the sink:
past viruses with unfinished business.
Just this morning you were remembering
The prayer meetings your sister dragged you to
When you were 15. After the clapping,
Singing, tambourines and testimonies,
She never got the result she wanted.
Back in the car, you looked out the window,
Quiet, suspecting the fault was with you
That it all seemed so tacky and stupid.
Later, left alone with only the walls,
You tried to puzzle it out for yourself,
Found that you couldn’t, shook hands with despair.
Time to clear out all this twisted cardboard,
Aluminum slivers smeared with toothpaste,
Thin shavings of gray light best left for dead.

Having Amadeus Euthanised

The needle was curved. (Why was the needle curved?)
The vet daubed the spot with alcohol where
In a moment he would administer the overdose.
Why bother with alcohol? In a minute my little cat
Would be dead – no danger of infection there.
I asked for a plastic bag. They were nicely obliging, but
When I got home and opened the box, look at this:
They’d given me a clear one. Great. This was the sight
I’d hoped to be spared: him, curled up, still warm,
But not breathing. Before proceeding any further,
I put down the shovel to go get a black one. Glad.

Digging Amadeus' Grave

I picked this spot months ago,
An act of choosing that filled
My chest with what felt like rocks,
But it was time to face facts.
Amadeus was 19, and not likely
To see 20, though some cats have.

And wouldn’t you know it, this
Morning, when I had to actually
Do the deed, sink the shovel,
I discovered the earth—surprise!—
Unwilling to accommodate
Grief. Root-choked and rocky,

My chosen spot fought the blade.
This was hacking, not digging.
Sweat began to flow. I cursed as
The hole refilled itself after each
Shovel-full, gradually becoming
Deep enough for what I had to do.

Meanwhile, three feet from my
Labors, he lay curled in plastic,
A cardboard box as temporary coffin,
His body warm, though his
Heart stilled. At a glance he seemed
Absorbed in his afternoon nap.

He was in no hurry, nor should I be.
Throwing down the shovel, I went
Inside to drink some water,
And draw those long, difficult breaths
Which this moment, if not that spot
Near the pine tree, made rightfully mine.

A Rose For Barb

Irene told me, back in June, to expect
Two bloomings, maybe three. “And don’t forget
To dead-head,” she added. Learning roses,
A new discipline for me, a project.
The second wave is waning now. A car
Pulls up—old friends from more than 30 years
Back, come for coffee. After our visit,
They leave in a rush of regret; a far
Drive awaits, and they have more stops to make.
“Hold on just a minute!” I shout, then dash
To find my clippers, dropped on the front porch.
I want to give Barb a pink rose to take
Home, and I sense that she understands why:
This race is me against the August sky.

What Chris Brought With Him

My older sister,
Speaking ex cathedra,
Long, long, long ago
(gently as a scream):
“It’s that simple,
really, selfishness
is the greatest
evil.” So. Jesus and
Buddha shared
A similar aim,
If Bishop Carla
Was to be believed:
The destruction
Of “me” on the one hand,
My irrelevance
On the other.
I tracked down a friend
After 36 years.
He’s a poet, teaches
At a university.
We both longed to be poets,
Long, long long ago,
Wrote verse together
And earnest letters;
Had soul-conversations
In those slower days
On mailed cassette tapes.
He’s published
A book of poems;
I haven’t. We drink coffee,
Talk about the old times,
Laugh. I order three
Copies of his book:
He inscribes two.
Shared stories of depression
Follow, and children, academia,
World travels, gray
Hair, bald pates.
And after it all,
The reminiscences, e-mails,
Tales of spiritual crisis,
A gift arrives, unexpected.
This is grace; it
Makes me truly glad:
As he drove away,
I found I could read
For the first time ever,
Harriet Monroe’s Poetry
Without getting mad.

Sail South 'Til The Butter Melts

for Chris Anderson

Born as I was on Columbus Day,
I sometimes envy the Italians
Of North Beach, San Francisco,
The last ones who can still get away
With celebrating it. No one, after all
Would dare contravene the rights
Of “ethnicity,” PC or no.
But it was nearly miraculous, as even
The most churlish would have
To admit, what your Genoese namesake
Did: not the stumbling over
A continent; sooner or later
Someone would have done that,
But having the compulsion,
The vision as we might say
In this age of self-help scams
And televised psychotherapy,
To throw the dice with confidence,
Never questioning that the outcome
Would at least be worth the queen’s
Indulgence. He was just past 40
When he made the trip, much older
Than we. Yet here we are,
Sipping coffee after nearly 40 years
In a world much kinder than the one
He knew, and the heuristic rock
Keeps skipping back to him.
Finding ways to find your way:
The gamble has become no less great,
Despite GPS and radar,
Since he groped for the torrid zone,
Before that myopic starboard turn
Into nearly-dead Sargasso,
Then to the enigma of Hispaniola,
Not, as he hoped, to rich Cathay.
The matched clocks tick out of
Sequence from where they hang,
In two rooms, on three different walls,
Their lack of precision a reminder
That finding ways to find your way
Remains what it is: all, and all.