One Use Only

The one good thing about disappointment

is that it always happens at the end.

It’s the fantasy that walked into a wall,

a promise that goes lame,

the new railroad,

tracks running from the north and

from the south

that don’t quite meet.

Grace Kelly, when she opened her

mouth and sounded stupid,

Marilyn when she opened hers and

broke your heart.

At the ball

At the punch bowl

At the line of coke

At the zoo.

What’s good about disappointment is that it’s

never a surprise.

You kind of hear it coming

even before the fun sets in.

cause you’ve done this all before.

The real deal though--

it never disappoints.

The wave that knocked you on your ass

raked your face and filled your mouth

clouded your vision and showed you fish,

all for the first time,

means that the next one is bound to disappoint.

Help Is On The Way Out

So someone might turn and see her. If that should happen, she was sure she ought to feel ashamed. If anyone had spoken to her, they might have said, “don’t be caught this way” because she’d just been standing, looking at the books, seeing enough with just the title to know the time when the book had arrived and how she got it. Tucked inside some pages would be a picture, a note, a recipe and she’d been glimpsed looking at these.

Stalled again, like on that street corner, not knowing which way to go, or standing too long at the rows of canned tomatoes, sure her life was still hiding inside pages, canned goods, street signs. But shame had worn itself out leaving her at ease and finally, exactly choiceless.

Time Slot

I could stand in the same spot all day

the sun never moving off the rectangle

it’s taken over on my ankle

I’d be found at day’s end

in the same place I’d started

our conversation taken up where it had ended

in between

goodby and hello

In the meantime an entire day

has sloshed patiently back and forth

lukewarm and soapy

smelling of overuse and triumphant decay