When I Was Last in Heaven

When I was last in heaven, five years back,
You lay right here, beside me. Now you're gone,
I have an empty bed to lie upon,
With yearning arms, my breath again gone slack,
Your eyes no longer bright now, the world black
And rife with injury, the sun that shone
Missing. Caesar has crossed the Rubicon
And triumphed, like a sudden heart attack.

There have been days where this unwholesome husk
Was beaten by whatever grief would fill
The wicked days and nights, paying the bill
For happiness now lost. Did I seem brusque?
I have no recollection of the dusk,
Only the moment when the earth stood still.

Stand Aside

As of this week, I’m registered to vote
In sixteen counties, at least seven states,
And one domain. My self-regard inflates
Sufficiently to lie across the moat
(A little like Sir Walter Raleigh’s coat)
And see me safely to the castle gates.
Democracy, like water, undulates
As I declare that I won’t need a boat.

This stagnant ring of water, this foul pool
Of ignorance, this raw, unholy mass
Of voting dupes, each one of them an ass,
A joke, an easy, brain-diminished fool
Who learned only to bark and bray at school,
Will stand aside now. I have laws to pass.

In Another Heart

Today I’ll be somebody: a black girl,
Too slowly growing into womanhood;
An Indonesian Muslim, in a whirl
Of stark transsexual need. I’m feeling good,
Prepared for anything, darkness or light,
Forgetting, memory, lies, truth, love, hate,
Exasperation, joy — with one great bite
I claim the freedom to appropriate:
Another old Jew in his seventies
With thoughts and feelings so foreign to me
I understand a dust mote in the breeze
Better than him. It’s only poetry,
A few short moments in another heart.
So human, we can not be told apart.

Off to the Slaughter

I had just visited my Mom and Dad,
Then flown back to my home, my wife, my daughter
As June began, the weather getting hotter.
My father said, “It’s time. Now, don’t be sad,
Take me to hospice care. I’m feeling bad,
But not about the end. I’ll watch the water
Through the window.” So, off to the slaughter —
I missed it all, and yes, I did get mad.

I should have known. Time learns to twist the knife:
Instead of thinking I was pretty tough
Maybe I should have waited. Things got rough
When I was with my mother, then my wife,
As each of them endured the end of life.
I’ve had enough of that now. More than enough.