Death, and: Defense Mechanism

Death

My mother turns seventyagain this year and it’s depressingevery time she does this

The windows respond with blanknesslike some part of the countrythat counts for nothing

Trapped between needingto know where they standand the pull toward umbrellas and cat toys

poets record a lot of disappointmentin alleys where chipped plasterfalls so often they had to set up little nets

My mother considers artistic typesmostly self-absorbed and I agreebut it’s not always so humorless:

I like the sound of things like abyssof the universe It’s like selling off a housefilled with tasteless antiques

Defense Mechanism

Impala lilies pale alreadyleopard orchids in winter mode

I turned my father awayover & over till we had some kind

of understanding & then sought outa life of simple personal accretion

Flower flesh between two fingersover the convex earth of those

who in memory bud like winter& summer spiral out

to where no future:As patient as he was as awful as I

The harder you try   my fatherwould say the harder it all becomes