A poem about Portland, because that’s what happens

This is a poem about all the books I bought (Nightingale, After-Normal, Holy Moly) and all the potatoes I ate, also let’s mention the oysters, the white wine and the red, the IPA I drank among other Ducks, also Colson Whitehead and Atlas Pinto. There was some rain, numerous transaction involving credit card and grief, sunshine, and also ice cream made of hazelnuts.

What of the man who said, “We’re not worthy of God’s Love”?

Sir, there are so many things I’m not worthy of, but let’s begin here: shoes that cost $289, but there’s no tax in Oregon, so let’s begin here. 

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Sonnet for a fool

There’s no fool like an old fool. Does

that mean that for the young,  foolishness

is a disguise, donned like a pair of gloves

meant to conceal motive and skin? In a sense

to laugh is to dissemble, rather than

to feel something real, to feel the fool

as when we inhabit the mirth. A span

of breath expelled, the inhale that fills

the lungs again with deceit. A man

walks into a bar and asks, Where’s

the bar tender? Wait. Not a man,

a termite. No point in ducking, there’s

a punch line coming. These days I try

to be the fool, the laugh that’s not a lie.

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The Sin of Dancing

(didn’t I say it probably wouldn’t be a poem? My students had to write a prose poem today, so here’s this!)

 

She wanted to spin, be spun out, her skirt flaring like indecency. She wanted the eyes to see her there, only her, not as if she were just one of many. Her problem was escaping the house, the day, the hour, the explaining. She had the money in her pocket, ones rolled up in little straws, their edges pressing into her thigh. It was easy enough. Down the back stairs while Mom was in the living room reciting times tables with the twins, Dad flat out on the couch like a bear. Sandy on the phone, brothers in the front yard with Frisbees. When the door clicked behind her it was like the world was her prison. She could go back. She would. The gym shone and smelled of old sweat. Raylene was there and they held hands like kindergarteners. When the music started and the teacher showed them the steps, one followed by two and three, then four. When the teacher’s  poodle skirt flared in a way that Mom would disapprove of, she felt her heart lift in her chest like a rocket. Even the mixed couples around them could not tether her. She knew there would be trouble.

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