After Hours
The lives we didn’t choose meet us in dreams –
teacher, pilot, maker of origami doves.
Landscapes morph or disappear
to house wishes our day-lives hide.
Teacher, pilot, maker of origami doves,
soldier, secret agent being chased…
What wishes does your day-life hide?
Do you reach the place you’re running to?
Soldier or secret agent being chased,
sharp-edged trees and rocks block the path.
Do you reach the place you’re running to?
Will your room seem strange and dull when you wake?
Sharp-edged trees and rocks block the path,
one obstacle following another.
Will your room seem strange and dull when you wake
after a night of danger and desire?
One obstacle follows another.
Landscapes morph or disappear.
Nights of danger and desire—
the lives we didn’t choose meet us in dreams.
..
Time
Quarantine. The pets get no alone time.
We can’t stop its damage, why bemoan time?
I love the o’s in Oh Ghost most holy,
Kali’s necklace of skulls, Buddha’s stone, time-
less grin. Burn herbs to match the moon’s guises.
Learn hope from the Maiden. From the Crone, time.
My neighbor’s confused rooster crows at noon.
Message on the disconnected phone – Time
is an illusion, one we can’t escape.
Cause of death, chiseled on the gravestone, time.
Something so fast in the grass, I doubt my
eyes but not my heart’s shiver. I’m shown, time
and again, there’s much to celebrate.
The girl’s gift, dolls. The boy’s, a trombone. Time
for earplugs and envy. Persephone
gets fruit, a hot husband, her own throne, time
away from Mom. Hell has its perks. Earth smells
like longing, with an undertone of time.
What does desire get us after all?
Our dreams are flimsy houses, blown by time.
Med students, after a thirty-hour
shift, raise a glass to life, a bone to time.
Recall sand soft beneath us on the beach?
How full and close the moon? How we shone? Time
irrelevant. Full of teen arrogance,
we thought we’d found a way to postpone time
Do the dead really float in some better
realm – carefree, happy to have outgrown time?
Nothing’s yours, Alison. Not those you love
best. Even this body’s on loan from time.