1. grace and paucity

absit invidia verbo

benefactor   bereftor   arbetrator

dispensator   

ivy covered red brick   green lawns

proust and pound   limericks in latin

dumpsters in alleyways   

what—a body

a cop   an ambulance   a cold slab   

gracious shipwrecktor   bountiful sea  

tropical turquoise sea   frothed cold cod-filled sea   

bodies abundant  

bone yards   of children

weeping parents   always   ask the same question

grand designor   great and powerful   

decidtor   the maternity ward   pat pat pat  

daddy   smiling   proud   maybe not

case dependent    all quite case dependent

maternal   decreetor

who bears the pain   

who wielded   who raised   first   the right

to obliterate your grace  

ape-men   

who indeed   reflect   reflector   

2. everything is small

sitting at the kitchen table   looking out the window

seeing the wide world

with its grief and expectations   looking inside my little world

with all that that assumes   it overwhelms me

marketa   in her jammies   sleepy

comes from the bedroom rubbing her eyes like a child

she is everything to me   my world   but the world

says otherwise   she comes to me  

i put my arms around her waist   pulling her to me

she smells like morning   for a moment my world is this  

very small   very warm   embraceable

is the world so big after all   is everything beyond reach

i look outside again   big   everything is big

and complicated   marketa watches me

~

watch the world   look   she says   across the street

a sparrow

is building a nest in the V of the CVS sign   it must be spring

in this light the world doesn't seem big or complicated

not at all   it looks like bits   like building blocks   like legos  

component parts   doable   embraceable

break it down   i think   the leaden sense of grief

we've been carrying   of hurt and loss  

is what   break it down   lost hope   fear   what ifs   what if

a green card becomes meaningless

what if there is a midnight knock on the door  

what if   break it down   i love her   she is so easy to love  

here   now   in the morning light   sweet scent   soft and warm

not quite awake   within my embrace   not yet 

 ~

girded for the day   her fearlessness yet to unfold

now a little vulnerable   susceptible

to the softness of my own hands   break it down   by the window

she stands beside me   my arm around her waist

my head against her tummy

break it down   sweet scent   warm body  

this bit is safe and loving   that bit is hard and dangerous  

the bit that is outside   an immense power

we have a different kind of power  

we may love and resist   everything is small   tiny differences  

words   matter   i can't put it together

there is here and now   there is her soft warmth   there is what if

oh, she is sweet   she is warm   she is soft   she is   here

it is fragile   this

3. modes of speech

 when passing professor eliot in a hallway

as one does 

or does not    but in this case does   we may pause

to spend a few happy moments in conversation

in which   invariably

he imparts something of worth   and off i go cheerily

contemplating the nature of caesura   or something of its sisterhood  

and when marketa speaks   she does so linearly  

from beginning to end   little circumvention   few tangents   with humor  

i am left to consider myriad points  and regardless of points   smiling  

when hazim   who is my landlord   catches me  

on the landing   with three bags of groceries in my arms

i am left some time later   often considerably later  

neither wiser   nor happier   nor sated in any manner   merely older

~

4. nexus

a very old man is washing windows

across the way  

i'm having my lunch on a park bench

i look around   no one seems to be watching me

if someone were   i'd imagine

the three of us having lunch together   on the bench   in the park

the old man uses a ladder to reach the window top

it seems dangerous

place and time join us   in a way

i don't know what we'd talk about  

a clean window reflects well on its owner   i suppose

we could talk about that