Want Not

No matter how I try my hair

won’t grow back. The power’s

gone out, someone saw wires

arcing down the block.

 

We find a lantern in the garage

that still casts enough light.

The time is never right but this

is probably not the time to say it.

 

Something’s burning in the house,

that smells like ballast. Something’s

wrong. The microwave won’t turn on,

an interior circuit scorched.

 

We have to pay the Russians

to fix it. There must be someone

out there who knows something,

at least if it’s worth the cost.

 

                --

 

What is connected to what?

The cabinets won’t latch because the doors

are out of true. I don’t remember

who to call about this.

 

I’ve lost track of the context.

My circulation is weakening. On

one leg, there’re little purplish bumps

where the flesh once was smooth.

 

Outside a bird sits on an almost bare

sycamore limb. Someone has left a message

about life insurance on the phone.

I erase it, but the voice is there again.

 

No one answers when I call the handyman

to fix the gutters, clogged with a mulch

of leaves and mud. The forecast says

another rainstorm is coming.

 

A small brown sparrow peeks

in the window. I barely hear its song

over the hum of the vacuum

sucking up all those lakes of dust.

 

                --

 

I go on a walk to reset my body.

The sidewalk smeared

with twigs and dead leaves.

Water standing in the curbs.

 

I’m careful not to slip. When I get

to Walgreens I’ve gone far enough.

A few panhandlers in the doorway

hold out their signs; I step back.

 

I’m well-heeled enough. But I give

nothing. I seem to be covered

in glycerin. I turn around looking

as if I’d swallowed a hunk of dry bread.

 

                --

 

Under the bridge could be barely

a foot of creek water. I don’t have

to worry if one of my own

might drown camping down there.

 

In my early twenties, I wore my work-shirts

creased. I needed to stand out from others

who shared the same emblems

of rebellion. No luck.

 

I bought used sweaters already moth-eaten.

Then took them to the dry cleaners.

I didn’t know anyone who slept

in the steam tunnels, though I pretended.

 

It was fashionable to seem disturbed

in those days, when the wind raged

in my hair. It was my ambition

to invent a new poetry in pill form.

 

                --

 

I want to know how to know what

I want. We got married in Guanacaste

for Christmas, with monkeys howling in the trees and

starfish pointing their crinkled arms.

 

We walked through the dry forest

beside the Gulfo de Papagayo

to a table where a spiny iguana

clambered up beside us and rolled its eyes.

 

When I woke up the bed was wrinkled,

the room a vat of humidity. I couldn’t find

my robe or the hook on which I’d hung it.

So, I went to breakfast in what I had on.

 

                --

 

I’ve brought with me pictures of two

of my favorite endangered species.

Salvador Dail with his ocelot,

and a collared peccary.

 

I’ve learned to appreciate the roof

of my beloved’s mouth. What you put into

the body is what you get out of it.

I’m the first and last in my family to remarry.

 

That would be the fifth and sixth time.

I need a new reason to keep going.

I’ll try anything to keep the moss

from growing over my head.