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Koi

The wind sock on the balcony is writhing

in the cold January air.

It is shaped like a fish, a Japanese koi

red and white with mouth agape.

Like so many things, it was here before I was.

When we moved into this city house

the owner had left it behind

dangling.

It has become mine

not by signing mortgage agreements

or insurance policies

but slowly

as the concept of owning land

of owning a home

has begun to make sense.

This koi can tell me

part of the story I wasn't around for,

can explain how the apple tree grew to be so big

why the rose bushes are everywhere on the lawn

what the crooked door frame is all about;

can help me understand that my time

is part of the bigger, endless moment;

that I am young but not forever

that I am here but not forever.

Standing outside, I wonder

about koi and the past

hoping I'll be well remembered.

You Are For Poetry

They say you are attracted to someone for 4 years
then you slip into something a bit different; you learn to live together and love each other.
Or you don't.
That might be so.
I don't tell you in quite the right way,
how you are a potter, and I am a poet—
there may be a chance that we'll just go on being attracted
to pots and words, lines and clay bowls
the turning wheels of stone and the turning pages of verse.
I am for your hands
and you,
you are for poetry.

I Try To Be Playful

I try to be playful
even as the weeks go by.
I realize what everyone has been saying,
that life gets harder.
It does.
Our particular creases get deeper,
our particular wearing points get more worn.
Our ideas get old.
Now, when a friend is gone
or someone moves away
it is much more important.
This is valuable information,
to know how to carry the things we need
as life happens.
In the romanticizing and justifying and imagining,
to have some tools that do the real work
that sometimes needs to be done.

The Mind To Find A Way

Lately I've had classical music playing during the day,
hoping to add whatever effect daytime classical music might have on my life.
It comes from the other room, through speakers I've hauled across America.
My stereo is a heap of equipment I have collected over the years.
Tinkering here and there, gathering disc changers,
digging an unused receiver from a friend's basement,
that was a real find.
I haven't paid a dime for the whole get-up.
To be separate from the world-turning force,
even in a set of speakers and some wiring,
even with just an antenna and some dials,
to have a screwdriver and two hands and the mind
to find a way.

Get Some Plums

The night before you left we went to the grocery store.
A crate of plums was conspicuous
dark and sexy next to the pale peaches,
water beading on their tight skin.
"Get some plums," you said, your lips forming
as if you were eating one right then.
Later, alone with little to do
I ate them
trying to feel decadent, holding the pits lightly between my teeth
imagining how you might do the same.

I Could Not Have Believed You

Had you told me there would be more smiles
I could not have believed you.
Yet here I lay, smiling like a fool
twofold? tenfold? more frequently than I ever thought
smiles could come.