With or Without You

Waking to Uselessness

Deer crossed the woods—    five deer,a tight dignified family—    covered with fog.I wondered what I had done all my life    as they stepped into the fogsafe from my uselessness,    which is dangerous.They passed nobly and regally,    a slow tango,past the dialysis clinics, post offices, and dollar stores,    out of sight of the druggist,the guy on the cherry picker over the highway,    him on the hammer-knife mowing the park,below the stalled high-rise, the liquor mart, the cop    aiming a hairdryer (radar gun) into the fog,beyond the rotting roadbeds, the still life with front-end loader    and bailed chicken wire,past befogged lawns where they pause    statuesque, sleepy, poised,by smudge pots, toolsheds, jackhammers,    snapped trees, and the wind-feathered,flattened, flyaway crime tape,    long and yellow and ratty.Then they vanished    at the tree lineand something gripped me    as the sun lit my unmade bed,the command center of my uselessness,    and began climbing the walls.Useless to turn away, nothing to do,     so I recorded itas it slowly candled the maples,    did up the sky like a clown,enlightened the fog,    and in minutes solved the foginto a single expression of how it all works—    paired ducks on the river belowthe goshawk that lives on the roof    and circles the river—with or without me.

A Lonely Woman in a Coffee Shop

DNA and the I Ching    won’t sort out our loneliness,straighten your hair, level luck’s    uneven playing fields.Joy is probably chemical.

But your wire-rims cast a fine    light on your worthless book,your cornrows glisten    and limn your sinking cheeks,and the chin of the moon    (which looks sort of like yours)and its nose nearly touch over midtown.

    Visit with me!I’ll save you a place,    we’ll be lonely together.Good coffee,    bright sun for companions,one mug to a window.