Kangaroos

Your dancing, effortless and beautiful,
Reminds me of my own, frightful, bizarre,
Unhinged, ridiculous and dutiful.
Most clearly, darling, I’m not who you are.
I was a scholar and a teacher then,
When we first danced together. Now I’m not.
For a day I was the happiest of men,
But I ought to have given it more thought.
I never understood you, or the dance,
Or anything about how women choose,
Decisions about bodies and romance
As foreign to my mind as kangaroos.
I reckon that a conscience wouldn’t do,
Just one more thing that would inhibit you.

The Illusive

I champion the illusive, but it flees
Into the night, gone with the dreams of fairies,
Love on the battlefield, and griffins’ aeries.
I mark the sound of the antiphonies
You started (not to hearten but to tease),
And drink about a dozen bloody marys,
Easing my conscience. Sunset on the prairies
Yields up more dust, more unsolved mysteries.

Crack open all the windows, take on trust
My word that nothing bad will happen here.
Illusions permeate the atmosphere:
You think you see right into the earth’s crust,
Believing that you have done what you must,
Believing everything you said was clear.

This Empty Box

Since I owe everything to entropy,
I’ve stopped this running, running down like clocks
With long-lost winding keys, still as old rocks
In ancient gardens, like a homily
Built on expired old tropes completely free
Of meaningful connection, and worn socks
Too thin to cover soles. This empty box
I used to call my brainpan isn’t me.

But we will rise again, an enterprise
Of big bangs and sad crepey onionskin,
Of interrupted joys, a compost bin
Full of dark matter, and a bridge of sighs
As long as winter. Show me your sweet thighs,
And watch me leap up like a demon’s grin.

Breast Cancer

It turns out that a man can have breast cancer,
So why not say this blood is from menstruation,
If anybody has that inclination?
Change happens: leaves turn red, the Bengal Lancer
Follows his guru, and a ballet dancer
Thumps about gracelessly. Organization
May work — could women help men vacation
From simple manhood? With a necromancer?

I start by calling on my feminine side,
To teach her boxing, welding, murder ball,
And learning poetry and the siren call
Of high fashion. We are becoming wide,
Containing multitudes. When Larry died,
It was breast cancer. Same thing for us all.