Full Language

Last night, I slept through

the worst of the storm, but only

after fretting and speeding

the radar map over its predictions,

the monstrous amoeba missing my place

by only miles, with strange tornadoes

already spotted an hour or so away,

strange because they spun

the wrong way, clockwise, and yet

sleep took hold. I dreamt of sentient lice.

I dreamt a key that would save

all of humanity, but it went absent

in the light like one of those

chemicals that turns when exposed

to oxygen. It is always pleasant

if confusing to wake just on the other

side of a new dawn, its cheeks still warm.

Only one guy died in the storm.

First gesture of the morning,

I text a lover back, friends, my phone

not yet warm in my hand. Someone sends

some nonsense back. Some levity

after a night’s clench of what if.

Few of these glyphs will stick.

This is not what one would call

a full language, but every day

fills my brain: I keep making too much sense

of life’s Mad Libs, life’s low pressures. The older I get

the more that feels gone, the more

that keeps coming back even after.

Unfinished Swans

             Take from it what you can. - Mary Oliver

Consider the number

of emails sent, of windows

watched from, of traffic

jams and other jams, of

shopping malls trekked,

of dull dreams, of sprays

walked through like mist,

of complex fears abated

through how many therapy

sessions, how many drugs,

how many drinks,

of times listening, truly

listening to the fall of rain.

The soft music of an empty

hammock, its number of sways.

Everywhere you look,

you’ve already missed it.

But once, I saw swans coupled

to a secret lake, a lake

only I had ever visited.

One dipped his head so

slowly under the water, out again,

that I now better understand

the reputation of swans.

So, two trumpeter swans

graced the shore of

Glen Lake, which impossibly

already had a name.

They moved like their story

was already done, like they couldn’t miss.

The real work is walking home

when you’ve tried what you can.

Consider what was tried, what was

underneath the trying.

Remember this when

you are unfinished, lying in a field.

Consider the number of fields.