Three Poems

Threshold

The open door beckonsa way out or a way in

when all else seemsnarrowly walled and white

The open door is a framefor a painting, precisely

measured, carefully cut,handmade, man-made

with power to close offas a rope or an eye cordons

off or includes everythingpertinent to the scene

A clean aesthetic, simplyoffering what it offers

seeing what it seesand allows you to see

the river, the road,the long line of trees

behind which the soldiersstare, then languish

You see them theretheir arms weary with

holding the gunswithholding their fire

You see them in the lightand think of them

at night, your soft gownblowing against you

as you sketch yourselfinto Life, entering

its scarred and beautiful bodyits wide and open eye

Shades

The old aunts are still standingin turn, backs to the fireplace,skirts lifted to warm their veiny legs.

Out on the front lawn, the crowscall to some distant power, plantingtheir crows’ feet in the grassy

crows’ paradise, green and wormy.The father is a boy still, slinginghis rifle, a toy still, over his soft

shoulder and heading into the woodswhere he’ll remain for years on end,forever seeking the slippery vagabondage

of freedom, fine fall afternoonscrisping into chill, the winter just ahead.The mother is ever herself, at home

and alone, pots boiling overbut retrieved in time, her blue eyesbrimming a melancholy she can’t serve up.

Just overhead in the dining room: clouds.Just overheard, the old bickering,with its raised brows, burning words.

Someone abruptly pushes back a chair,rising from the table, a tearful tenwho won’t forget, ever, her heart

carving a question markat the end of every breath.

Tactile Matters

Roundness is all. Smooth surfaces,the fat ball you wrap your hand around,

that sleeps in your open palmuntil you decide what to do with it,

cars that curve and satisfy, lowto the ground, slick as river rocks

ahead on the road, which quietlypublishes its next move

so that you turn the vehicleas you turn the page

or the potter’s wheel, embracingthe wet clay, shaping it your way.

The wild-haired Einstein told ushow space is curved, like a canopy,

how the apple doesn’t drop straightdown, but rather rolls down the slope

toward the spinning earth, a freefall that takes our breath away.

What he didn’t say was howcurves can please, how the whorl

of the shell and the full-term bellymesmerize, how we trace the arc

with our fingers, to be a part of it,as the soprano’s voice follows

the golden stream easily upcurrentand home again, resting in the sweet familiar,

while we, the clumsy, off-key children,climb the sides of the ropey hammock,

giggling and trying to hold on,to stay right-side-up,

the getting in and getting outour scariest maneuvers.