Make Something

Excavate the clay from the beds of your eyes

to shape its crude skeleton.

Press its feet into sand so it stands rooted

wherever you find forgiving earth.

Use force

wherever you don’t.

Plunder grand tapestries crafted by greater men

for patches and scraps

to stitch the skin to its bones.

Command your creation

to rise.

If that fails (which it is bound to do)

use flattery and bribery and even deceit.

When you have nothing left in you,

kneel.

Press your lips to husk and stone

and pound its chest

until it creaks to life.

I don’t blame you

for limping back to your lover

who waits with a silver bowl brimming

in outstretched hands.

You ache for intoxication

and you imagine

once she is done pouring herself down your throat

she will oil your stiff shoulders

and bathe your eyes, so weary

from trying to fix your gaze on that hairline crack

in the horizon

where your promise gestates.

The mighty figure you see reflected

in that pool of her grasp

is hard to resist,

especially as she refills it again and again

and whispers that you belong there

that she will restore you

to the one thing she has known all along.

You are a marvel, limitless,

an everyday rarity.

You are a man.

She will give you sanctuary

For as long as it takes

But not a moment longer.

Don’t mistake the sustenance for the source.

No well is bottomless

And no woman’s hands can fight gravity

or the urge to scratch

her own itch.

Sip

long and deep.

Then turn your back and walk out the door.

Your love is not resting at the bottom of a bowl.

The golem you braved doubt to construct

awaits your transfusion.

Your place is there,

Animating

your next incarnation.

Vienna

As the Orange line train nears
the final station, the car is heavy with men.
On my left, one with gray hair keeps falling asleep.
His head hangs limp, swaying. His right hand bears
a red-gold claddagh, heart turned in. Rocking,
his leg brushes mine
again
then brushes mine again. He does not stir.

The touch, brief and anonymous
under the blanket of empty stares,
thrills me.
He means no harm. He seeks his respite
as we all must.

On all sides of me, men sport rings.
I notice these things
now that my delicate band lives in its dark velvet case
and I wear two thick hunks of silver, hand-hewn knuckledusters
on my middle fingers.

Each of these men, someone has chosen.
Each of these men has chosen
to stay
at least for today
as the wind slices its January chill
across the tracks
where the train sighs to a stop.
The sleeping man rouses himself
pulls tight his scarf
and ducks out into an evening
eager to ferry weary husbands
to the ones who await them.

Home is only a moment
but it is warm enough
no matter how fleeting
the pleasure of arriving where you are known.

I follow the parade up the escalator
out to the garage where I have parked on top.
My windburnt cheeks brush against the belly of imperfect sky
whose violet embers sear the deepening blue.
The days grow longer even though it is still winter.
Light greets me now
at the end of day.