Too Hot To Handle

“Those are gunshots,” Len said,
pouring me another bourbon.
“How often do you hear them?”
“In New Orleans, every week.”
“How’s your bourbon?”
“Good,” I said.

A bullet pierced the window
and shattered my glass—
like a line of poetry
straight to the heart.

“That’s a good line,” Len said.
We both chuckled.
A few more shots rang out.
We went back to watching
an old Jayne Mansfield film,
Too Hot To Handle.

Assault on Silence

Outside Detroit’s Orchestra Hall
I had a smoke and chatted
with the security guard
when gunfire erupted.

“Those aren’t musical instruments,”
he said. They were getting closer—
like a drive-by staged
on a rolling film set.

We stepped back inside.
The orchestra had fired
round after round
until out of ammunition.

A dead audience,
still in bloody clothes,
stood to applaud
this assault on silence.

This hour, this moment, this now.
This summer day framed by my window,
it is irreflexive, it stands by itself,
a singular instead of dual object
in the fields of green mathematics.
It is the stillness of time rooted in trees,
time at the green tip of its leaves,
an aura around its summer flowers,
and every flying, singing thing.
This now, this moment, this hour,
resemblance now strangely altered,
though nothing has changed.

Two cabbage white butterflies is a mating dance,
three is a rivalry,
four is a friendship or a family,
eight is a dinner in a meadow of clover
and anymore, is a vision,
between you and your god.

I look at my aging skin
and see how bone begins to speak—
like I’m palming black aces.

What have you grasped, hands?
What riches have you wagered
that didn’t sift like sand or water?

You have but one argument for salvation:
you were present; you endured.
Even scattered across space,
the bones of the hand
hold the dust of a star.

For thoughts like these, I live with praise—
for the hands I have held,
for the winds that have sung my face
back into my hands.

Shadows flower through iron lace,
a shadow leaf falls from a balcony
and vanishes in my hand.
Darkness has one wing and light another.

In Louisiana, the wind dies where it falls,
like death’s unanswered questions—
day in, day out,
that same old voodoo follows us about.
But at the exact moment
of that assignation in Dallas,

the bells of St. Louis were ringing,
a tomato vender counted his millions,
and a prostitute on Bourbon Street
felt a light rain absolving her.

And that is why they call life a mystery,
and truth a conspiracy.

I understand my obsession
my senses are worn
my heart and mind
thinned by feeling and knowing
even with such exhaustion

to the core of me
I try to make words appear

that can somehow be a solace
for those who suffer

as flowers blossom in children’s eyes
lavishly as from soil

their spirits play in empty parks
the God of light delights in their joy

I suppose
a few kindnesses
is the least I can do

There’s a feather from the sky
There’s a feather in my eye
There’s a feather spiralling down
There’s a feather lifting the ground
Whenever I find a feather
I can’t help myself
I have to pick it up and fly
I have to pick it up and try

for Juliana Marins (June 21–24, 2025)

A nun levitated above her bed
Her face in rapture
While outside the window
An old man with walker
Fell face first into sidewalk
And was carried away by ants
And across the world
A young woman slipped into a volcano
And went to sleep
In the fires of the earth
Above or below
The mystery remains
It is levitating even now

There’s no bottom to this marsh.
I’ve seen shadows of monster carp,
and swarms of giant catfish.

I’ve seen an eagle drown,
and water snakes swim
into the unknown.

Divers go down
and never come up.

Those who survive
say there is a darkness down there
that’s hypnotic—

a black diamond gleaming up,
like a lake in the marsh
with endless shores,
its own sky and clouds,
a sunrise from another world.

And how deep that lake goes—
nobody quite knows.
They call it a black diamond—
rarer still than any gem.

Take me to the water’s edge
and scatter my ashes there.
I’ll be part of Lake Erie happily,
laughing in its waves.

Take me to the water’s edge
and hold me above its light,
like my father held me as a child
and continues to in my memory.

The sun and water—one element
in the fabric of those first sensations.
Like being born out of eternity,
I was also drowned in eternity.

Scatter me kindly when I’m gone.
Drop me in Lake Erie’s waves,
release me into that material light—
I’d rather be home than away.