Sinclair never wanted

to hurt anyone.  He started out

the little brother to everyone’s

best friend, which is

to say, a witness to beauty,

a beggar on the edge

of the in-crowd.  And so

he took the moon seriously,

which is to say, personally,

awaking one winter night

in charge of his own

disappointment.  So

what started out a joy ride

in his brother’s graduation

present ended up

a robbery one town over,

the Dairy Mart in Fairmont;

he simply hit the small

Korean man four times

before reaching for

the cash register.  And so

it began:  transgression

the sweetest catalyst,

all the properties of moonlight

contained in a simple act—

which is to say,

he was changed, though

no one knew.  Until

last Wednesday evening

when a woman’s arm

was found two miles from

her armless body.

And Sinclair slept naked

in the culvert with the other

arm tucked beneath

his chin, partly gnawed on

and all pillow to

his happy dreams.

Unrecognizable in his armor

of fur, he loped off

at the sound of sirens.

No one saw him again.

 

 

 

 

A three-legged dog walks into a bar looking for its father.  “Has anyone seen my Pa,” it yells out.

 

The bartender runs around the bar with a broom, begins to swat the dog, yells, “Get out of here, no dogs allowed,” though it’s the cat, Rhonda, he’s worried about, poor one-eyed Rhonda hissing behind the well whiskey, who hasn’t left the bar since 1998 when a dog, maybe this one, dragged her up and down the alley a few times, chewed her face, ran off with her eye.  Rhonda, poor Rhonda:  she’s unreliable still around the bottles, no depth perception, little humor.  His wife bought that cat just before she died; she’s all he has left of her:  ugly one-eyed calico.

 

He kicks the dog.  He swats it with the broom again.  “You got three legs left, you little cur,” he yells.  “Where’s my Gladys?  Where’s my Rhonda’s eye?  Who the hell are you to come in here crying for your paw?”

 

“But it’s you I’m looking for,” says the dog.  “Father, why have you forsaken me?”  The bar goes still as a shaft of winter light.

 

The bartender starts sweeping his way back behind the bar.  He remembers now.  He remembers everything.

 

 

 

 

You are nothing like

your father, who was

washed from a long sleeve

of dust, from the arroyo’s

desiccated memory:

a diamondback

slipping its skin

in the drowsy heat.

 

Your father.

Who once said,

“Place is a sort of salve,

a bandage of grief

bandaging grief,”

who believed belief

was the encapsulation

of a dream in time.

And so he never left

his home beneath the river oaks,

beside which a little cross

of oak marks the spot.

 

*

 

You and I stopped once

on the Angeles Highway

to watch the deer drift in

and out of the fog.

They nibbled at the laurel

and nudged each other

like friends reminding themselves

of a shared joke.

 

You said, “He loved me

like a son.”

“But you were his son,” I said.

And the sky fell away on all sides.

 

Your smile separated

from your face

like a scythe thrown

in a field of rye.

 

You said, “The requirement

of memory is remembering.”

And the sky fell away on all sides.

 

*

 

You walk the canyon now at dawn,

return home to feed the cats,

to fold yourself flat like a worn

undershirt, to store yourself away

as if afraid of daylight.

But it isn’t the light, the heat,

the way the lupine looks

like bits of sky scattered

in the foothills.

It’s all you’ve ever wanted:

a more complete night.

 

 

 

 

The ferry is escorted by dolphins

To the Fun Zone across the bay.

The streets are named for seashells

And gems, the houses all have names.

 

And the boys sail buoy to buoy,

While the girls move boy to boy.

My mother suns on a beach towel

Watching Tom play with plastic toys.

 

Father drives down for the weekends,

He’s more than a voice in a phone.

We run to the car to greet him,

He pulls us close, but he’s still alone.

 

At night we watch through windows

The TVs on Pearl Avenue.

For Carrie, it’s always Laugh In.

For Tom, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

 

All I want is to see the moonwalk,

Every window the same blue glow.

My mother’s asleep at the table

When we finally find our way home.

 

Shore to shore, all night, the ferry

Blows its horn while we wait for sleep,

While we await the return of our sister,

Who’s the promise that no one can keep.

 

She walks the streets of the island.

She talks with the ghosts on the docks.

She runs tabs at the bars of Erebus.

She has picks for all of the locks.

 

My sister, a thief of darkness.

My sister, who argued with light.

My sister, who left too early.

My sister, a sister to night.

 

Shore to shore, with quarters for Charon,

Back and forth for 54 years,

By our window she sings in a whisper

“Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat and Tears.

 

I wake at dawn, find her voice replaced

By songbirds the rain will soon erase.

I wonder now if she wondered why

She was given wings but couldn’t fly.

 

 

 

 

 

Where’s Skip, goddamnit,

perfecting his tour en l'air

in the field behind the Texaco

instead of rehearsing

the double play?

Coach cried

when he tacked the roster

to the dugout door.

I heard his little boy Lefty

is in the chess club

at Northfield Middle.

My god, the memories:

Dutch Defense, the Evans Gambit;

Skip punching the librarian

when she tried to drag him

to the boy’s bathroom;

he’d rather pee

in his chair

than give up

the advantage.

Pee Wee Reese, Rabbit

Maranville, Ozzie Smith,

Willie Wells.

With names like those

who wouldn’t want

to play short stop?

So with Skip

at second

we choreographed

our moves: the soft

underhand as

we chasse close

on a ball up the middle;

the plant, pirouette

and sidearm throw

from the third base side.

Coach cried

as he turned his back

on the list,

but there we were:

me and Skip.

I penciled in a

parentheses next to “James”

just to see what would happen

and sure enough:

Dizzy Harms is what

they call me

on the diamond,

though I can hear him

now and then, Coach

cursing sotto voce.

“Skippy and Misha,” he spits

with a stream

of tobacco juice.

Skip pretends

to sneeze:

“Diaghilev!” he shouts

from between

second and first.

“Gesundheit,” I answer,

and we fall apart

laughing

right there in

the infield.

Mom took us

for gelato

when we made

the team.  We saw

Coach at the Dairy Queen

across the street

begging poor Lefty

to eat his Blizzard.

“Hey, Lefty!”

Skip yelled, waving

his yellow plastic spoon.

“Don’t laugh,” Mom said,

as Coach began to cry,

but too bad.

We’ve been helping

Lefty with his

first baseman’s stretch

in the field behind

the Texaco.  It’ll be

Dizzy to Skip to Lefty

in a year or two,

and Coach can just

deal with it.

We made the team.