--YOU’RE MY GREAT ESCAPE

  

If You Are Not

And if you are not

the sun or moon
Or medicine
   from a pure river
If you are not
Gold bars
Beaches with sea glass water
A triple rainbow propped up between
   the arms of the sky
If you are not
Filled with the strongest science
A jack of all trades
Winner of Top Chef
If you are not
Bilingual
Cavity-free
Charitable
Limber
Completely confident
Good with directions
Able to multi task
   in your sleep
Or a virgin
If you are not
   any of these
   I could really
  care less
Just scoot closer
Spoon me
Whisper in my
   ear again
   about how
   we fit

 

Seattle Rain

We are setting records, historic ones

The gray, incessant nasal drip rain
The hoodlum clouds clustered at every corner
The flock long gone, now sunning down in Florida
Treetops the only ones pushing back on oppression
The mountains gripping their pristine bed sheets of snow
The lone eagle circling overhead like a stood-up lover
The beaver submerged with his one big breath
The deer shivering in soaked pelts and muddy hooves
Squirrels mating all day on the fence just to keep warm
Rabbits humping because that’s what rabbits
Do regardless of the weather or time of day
One enormous cloud, plum purple, rinsing out her dirty laundry while
Just for fun, or because I’m an imbecile, I step outside
Open-mouthed, tilting my head upward, catching her
Cool wet coins as if they are candy shot out of a piñata
The rain will make you crazy all right
Just ask my old roommate
The one at the psychiatric ward
In the room with every window blacked out

 

The Problem

This morning when

I looked down
I saw that I had
Old man hands
Skin pale white
Milky if they
Weren’t so dull
Flesh like a plucked chicken
I suppose I could
Wear gloves
Stuff my hands into my pocket
Or cut them off and
Get fitted for prosthetics
What I do instead
Is ignore them
altogether
The same way I do
All my issues
And that right there
Is the real problem