The book, thick, bound twice over, just to be safe.
The leather is soft, though, after years of handling and
Printed in a bold strong font.
The pages have yellowed on the edge
But open the book and they’re white again.
There are chapters and sub chapters
Indexes and tables of contents
With many jottings in the margins
In handwritings that vary according to the year
To the ink
To the writer
Each bit of instruction modified for the owner of the book
It may be a living document
But it is treasured
Held close
Not to be trifled with.

Swearing by God
By my honor
By my virtue
By my art
By my love
I swear by my life
As I do live
Swearing upon one’s very breath
We give the oaths
Such weighty companions
Hoping to lend them credence
But we don’t have a word
For “forsworn” anymore.
If you swore, on your life,
And then broke your oath,
You might be applauded for doing so
You might be chastised
But it is only for the Gods
To tie your promise together
With your breath
As you suggested.

My mind must be in the gutter today
Because all I can think about
Is a morning cock crew.
I picture a team of uniformed fellows
Sent in, running, first thing in the morning
To address the needs of the cock.
Perhaps they erect it
Get it up on blocks to look under the chassis
Take it for a spin
Bring it in to the garage
To fine tune it.
The morning cock crew
Bustle about
Making light work for the crew
That comes in the evening.

The dance of almost speech,
The body arranging itself for words
Will be visible from a great distance
No matter how subtle.
One could not say what we see shift –
But our eyes are primed to notice the preparation for a pronouncement.
I think it is the breath, perhaps,
Swelling out the chest.
Or a kind of forward momentum
Or maybe just a slight tilt of the chin upward
A subtle cue
To muscle one’s way into silence
Or among a tumult of voices.
Those who wait their turn to speak
Will watch for this flag and wait.
Those whose pleasure it is to claim space
In conversation
Will watch it like a car on the entrance ramp of the highway
So they can speed forward before the car on the lane arrives.
The about to speak-ness broadcasts itself and is received
According to the system that reads it.

Not answering is always an answer.

It’s an answer full of nothing and everything.

It’s the fullest of potential and most void of certainty.

An unanswered answer answers with silence.

Not like water falling over stones
Or hard shelled little creatures on their backs, kicking to the sky
These hands are not more like
A sea urchin, grasping for food
Or a heart beating
Especially not when closed into a fist
Not like a jellyfish, no.
Not like a star, drawn by a child
Not like an alligator with two sets of jaws
Or a sculpture in the sound
Not like my mother’s hand
Not like my grandmother’s
No not yet
Though soon
Soon

Mr. Hamlet would pick up
Little Horatio after baseball practice.
He’d ask after his mother
Give him a juicebox
Pat him on the shoulder
When some injustice at school stained his face with tears.
Mr. Hamlet, like a second father,
Watched Horatio grow
Getting taller and shorter and taller
than his son.
When the boys came home from school
Mr. Hamlet asked after Horatio’s
Prospects, how he found his housing
How he enjoyed the weather.
Did they know each other?
Certainly.
But did Horatio know how Mr. Hamlet
Longed for a patch of land
Near his old estate?
Did he know how he
Withered a bit
Whenever his proud cousin came to town?
Did he know about that night one September
When he sat in the kitchen with his belt around his neck,
Standing on a kitchen chair wondering?
Certainly not.
But one doesn’t need to know another’s secrets
To know him, right?
The man who sells the apples on the streets is known to many.
If he were to disappear
Many a fruit eater
Would contribute to the search call for help
Mourn his absence.
Even if no one ever knew
His love for daisies,
He would be known and lost.

Five lines of anticipation
For a hell of a pay-off
In line six.
Horatio picks up the thread with a bit of a story
Follows it
Carefully
Confirming each inch
As he moves along
To what could be a story all on its own.
If this last phrase
Were the first phrase
Of a novel,
A world would be opened up.
In fact, the scene which is described here
Is the opening of this world.
The coming of the apparition
Is the trigger
On the gun of this play.

Put me in a canning jar
Boil me in a pot
I am no longer the bright succulent fruit
Hanging from the vine
Fear has reduced me
Like heat and a sugar solution
To my very essence –
I will taste good in winter
When darkness and cold would keep me from growing
But I am boiled down
Bits of bone
Bits of stone
Bits of gristle and terror
In amongst what was once my personality.
What use is personality in this heightened moment?
No, I am naught but Fear Preserves.
A jam of the jammed.

Horatio paints a picture.
He picks up the grey
Squeezes it onto his palette.
He is starting with the general wash
Dotting in the details
Then spreading them from top to bottom.
He moves the brush across the canvas
Deliberately
From one side to the other
Pushing the picture in all directions
From the middle of the page.