Without my glasses on
I couldn’t be sure it was him.
It was his shape
His form
His gait
His hair
His clothes
His gestures
But his features
Were a blur
I couldn’t tell if he was smiling
Or frowning
Displeased
Or pleased.
There is so much in a face.

We painted ourselves from top to toe this morning
We noticed where we wanted to skip
Or rather
Where we did
Because we skip and skip
Our attention
We can’t see what we can’t see
But this morning I saw how I couldn’t see
Into the middle of me
I couldn’t see those bones between bones
I couldn’t see where the top met the bottom
Where East met West
Looking from top to toe
Or rather, from toe to top
One could see what couldn’t be seen
Or at least that I couldn’t see it.

A quick turn in conversation
A return
To a thought
To a memory.
If a person weren’t paying attention
One could think he was still in the previous thought
– that is, he could be asking if they’ll be armed when they hold the watch
maybe that’s the question they think they’re answering
but somehow they all understand each other here
or at least give the appearance to
and all the information is accurate because conveniently
both the ghost and the watch are likely to be armed.

We take turns
Wednesdays he gets it
Thursdays I do.
I like to warm it in my palm
Letting the metal get brighter, shinier
My hand making its case different than it was
One temperature to another
Transforming a cold metal circle
To a warm extension of my body.
As it ticks along
I feel my own mortality
And the mortality of all those who held the watch before me.

The deadening of art with belligerent commercialism
The destruction of artists, nay, not destruction
But diminishment
Watering down to create
Diluted art.
The training of actors to be more and more like each other
So that one ingénue can be exchanged for another
Without missing a beat.
The pressing of dancers into a form
The molding of singers into a copy of who came before
The formulas developed at an institute
For trademarked techniques
To create packaged entertainment
Some of which I enjoy
But this troubles me.

People make fun of me
But I often prefer an “indeed”
Over a “yes.”
It’s so much more emphatic
More like a bass drum
Than a snare.
It makes me want to stroke my chin and nod my head
Or take off my glasses
To give them a good cleaning.
A bolder acknowledgement
Of what came before it
“indeed”
gives a thing
some weight.

The muse sits tied up in the corner.
She’s a bit tattered
Her feet are dirty
There are leaves in her hair.
You claim your innocence, your lack of involvement in the affair
You didn’t tie her up
You didn’t tear her clothes
You have no authority to free her
You sit
You drink tea
Read your paper
Hoping someone will arrive to free the poor girl or thing
Whatever it is.
Later, you will claim you didn’t know
You couldn’t have understood
The figure in the corner never said anything.

A warm basement
A table covered in sweets –
We were strangers
Starving and lost.
We’d come to the restaurant in hopes of taming
The hunger we’d brought, first on the train, then the bus
Then the ferry and the sputtering car
From the morning to the next morning
Into this afternoon.
The family had just finished Christmas dinner
When we stumbled against their glass sliding door.
We were ready to turn on our heels and go
But they brought us in without hesitation.
They fed us all the sweetness.
They showed us card tricks
Practiced their English and laughed
At our fumbling attempts to speak their language.
If I need an image of absolute welcome
And hospitality
If I need to remember how it feels
To be grateful
To accept the generosity, kindness and grace
Of someone or something
I conjure that basement room, the yard, the world around it.

Would you rather be blind or deaf?
Blind, blind, always blind.
A world without sight would be hard for certain.
I am obsessed with the spectacle of life
With the grand visual statements
With color
With shape
With the power of a bold bright image.
I would be bereft
If I were to lose my sight –
But to lose sound
Would break me into a thousand pieces
To not hear music
To lose the sound of your voice
The timbre, the pitch, the rhythm
To miss the gurgle of a stream
The shake of laughter
To lose sound
Would be to lose the very heart of me.
I don’t think I hear just in my ears
I hear all the way in here
The vibrations move me from the inside out
Listening is like my super power
Like what I do first and foremost.
If I were to lose everything –
Let me lose that last.

If my father were king,
There would be a lot of dances
And much singing.
He wouldn’t enslave the masses –
He’d just encourage them to get together and sing songs.
There would be a whole fleet of jesters for the amusement of the court and he’d
Send in choruses of children instead of armies.
He’d do his best to be a jolly royal
As he encouraged all his subjects to become peacemakers.
I don’t know if he would reign over an era of much prosperity or progress
But they would speak of those year’s noble attempts and royal pursuits.