don’t worry

 

from a distance you rely on form. a woman

picks up a stick off the ground and pokes at death.

birds unbind air towards the feet of men

throwing bread. doorways come alive

through small gestures and I reach out

with the boldness of a child   towards what is luscious.

 

I have a friend who walks barefoot in snow

and whose cheek I have held to my own   through the open window

of a car that won’t start. he can’t believe his grandmother

would have died without ever knowing of atoms,

grandmother your hands are atoms and so is this clementine.

 

but he is composed of her the same as anyone is made of atoms

and I don’t know how anyone rides the train without sobbing.

recently I have been   mistaking subway screeches for human

cries of disaster. dragging   a cigarette slowly

and shifting the coins in the cup with her wrist   an old woman

 

with blue-gray hair, in a pastel sweat suit and yellowing skin, sits

by a payphone singing numbers like hymns. the unfortunate part is

most decision makers are remarkably unoriginal. on her shoulder

the parrot with inbred, golden pattern repeats: don’t worry

don’t worry, don’t worry , don’t worry

 

*

 

Mystical Facts

 

once I heard someone say geologists date artists
because one is god and the other observer
my poet friend seems to always date doctors
he calls and vents about self righteousness
then asks if I’ve finished his book
nightly I listen to these fables
of two gods who bicker
through the upper west side
lemonmind and lemonmoon
      the god and the observer
are equally needed   but sour
over having to collect
the dismembered wolf
scattered across the dewgrass
once under the train tracks   
a stinging nettle left my arm burning
the whole walk back to the river  
I was so high   
uninterested and bright  my
angels don’t announce themselves with such directness
faces hidden by bouquets in transit  
teasteam in flickering corners
god or observer
my honeytongue is slow
and stuck to the roof of a mouth I’m learning to sound