And now you’re even older

i.

My birthday looms, as does my right eyebrow
in its attempts to mimic Einstein’s ‘do.
It casts more shade than whole groves of bamboo.

ii.

The pollen loves me. Such cannot be said
of sinus medication or my head.

iii.

Old. I’m old. I’m getting older yet
so quickly I’m forgetting to forget.

iv.

Paul Simon said that April come she will
and he was right, but then willy or nilly,
she goes so May may be maybe. Really.

v.

I used to do my taxes with a pen,
now I just sign my name where I am told.
An alchemy–1040s into gold.

vi.

I’m older than I ever was. Tonight
I’ll sleep sleep of the just, as if I were.
All my injustices are just a blur.

Connect

Sue’s not here, man. I still don’t know her,
don’t know if she ever had this number or just used
mine to cash a check or pawn off some beered up creep
who wanted the digits and wouldn’t take his palm
from the back of her skinny neck. I used to
answer the phone. I just picked it up
and put it to my ear unthinking, uncaring who
might be on the other side. Fear no evil, fear
no telemarketer nor bill collector, nor pathetic lothario
thinking I’m Sue. Oh I’ve been Ms. Hong
to someone for years. I used to answer
and then they were asking for Sue or the dead
or telling me of the dead and even
if it’s Sue’s dead and not mine, damn,
just tell my voicemail. Sue’s head
will droop roundly on her skinny neck soon
enough. She may owe someone. It isn’t me.

Primary Colors

Favorite color’s red. But anymore,
I kneejerk to it, like turning
your head off to the side and spit. Okay,
so I don’t do much spitting outside
of brushing my teeth. I can learn.

Handy

The dryer sounds like cinematic
brontosaurus. Jesus riding. But wine
would stain. I’ll reconsider. Maybe Moses
sending waters off. This is post
Pharaoh’s bullshit with the blood,
right, Mo? But still the dinosaur
leads to its own difficulties, fighting
off paleontologists who want to ET
him in a bubble, and Denis
(I’ve named him Denis)
doesn’t like plastic or needles,
no, he doesn’t like needles at all. Phil
the trilobite would be easier. Fuck Phil,
really, just wiggling a bit in the blower
wheel. No Jesus. No nothing.

Methodology

I always pictured
the scientists wild-haired,
an unexplained plasma
ball reflecting in eyes
so Charles Manson wide
and some amount of cackling
and cries of “it’s alive!”
allowed, and the rest
of humanity stands
around all astounded
(there should be oohs)
and we’d rush out
to use whatever widget
or flubber or thing
akin to magic
made by machines
that could be featured
on a particularly vivid
episode of Sesame Street
and lo, the stentorian
voiced commercial for Time
Travel in a Box and I
would have sent my brother
to 1803 and am certain
I wouldn’t miss him at all.

Instead there are computers
and math and more math,
and a marked lack of cackling
(though I don’t miss the eyes)
and we sit across the table
and I think she looks like
someone you’d see
at Starbucks and not
while people watching
just waiting for a skinny latte
and I’m bored and she sighs
and says “usability?”
in a voice like I’d use
if someone wanted to put
brains in my tea
(and not “brains!”
like Igor. Maybe something
more sheepy and grey),
and she is smart but
not crazy and we both
know what she finds
will mean only
that someone else
will do more research.
And she doesn’t know
(but I do) Joe is safe.

… of the Apostles

Later, I blasphemed by thinking
John the Apostle was awful

cute, at least in the movie,
but before that I just puzzled

over what he and Peter were
gonna do with that axe seeing

as they didn’t chop Jesus
down from that cross despite

all those chances (something
something about Romans
and lots of dice like Yahtzee)

but when you have a hatchet,
doesn’t every tree look like lumber?

Rhododendron

I think sister you cursed it it felt
your glare as you passed learning

or remembering the family rumors
that one the size of a dumptruck

loomed outside your dining room and ate
all sunlight for miles around so mine

caught sight of you and your rage
and shrank and the oil green

leaves shrank and its will to live shrank
and it just sits withered and dies bloomless

sister that this one’s cousin
distant cousin you live four states away

sister that this one looks like
a woody molehill to your one’s mountain

or a pinkie toe to a leg but now
a pinkie toe with some odd nail fungus

like an offputting commercial
and I’ve never seen it flower at all

if I robbed a bank would you go
whistling to jail for me don’t answer

that if you do not wish to give me ideas
I will not come and sneer at the stench

of your too thick lilac’s perfume and you
can just come tell this shrub who’s
a good boy he is he is.

Voice

Yo vi mil Garzones que andavan cantando
Por aqui volando haciendo mil sones

It’s always the ones you cannot sing alone
that stick to your tongue and refuse to be scraped
off on a molar. And the government
shall be upon his shou–and the government shall
be upon his shou–and the government shall be
and you are gasping (WONDERFUL! COUNSELOR!)
and laughing at the release of the four voices
all coming together, Sybil saying one brief prayer
at breakfast, over oddly liquid oatmeal,
please god, congeal. Congeal.

Dementia

Grandma just sat in her shiny chair, oh sometimes her hands wrung, her mouth fretted, her diagnosis gave her granddaughter, me, a picture of someone Einstein-haired, axe-wielding, blood-painting, lamb-slaughtering, not calling for her daughter, her son, ignoring her granddaughter, me, her eyes glazing like a suckling pig’s.

Holt

The den is thick with sooty smells,
that tongue-glaze of something old

and animal and the coughing
throat clench of fish and crawdads.

How does a man come to be
named for this place? An ottery

man, a man of sleek whiskeryness
and a land-awkward romp

of too-short limbs, cracking
shellfish on a hairy belly

and mugging for the cameras
with shining oceanic eyes.