He swings the shark into the air above his head, hands
wrapped around its tail,
swinging hard backwards and then overhead, until
at the very peak of the
arc there is a millisecond of stillness, backlit by the glare
of city lights, man and shark
a dark silhouette edged with glow, the man’s back a curve
against the weight, and the long shark body an answering
curve in the air above, like a
pair of sweeping wings, as if both plan, at any moment,
to take flight together
until the frozen moment breaks as the arc comes down hard
against the planks with shark and
wood meeting in a solid thud amid the gasps of the crowd,
and the now limp shark again rises in the air above the man
as he pivots and releases its body
back out to the ocean, and we all rush to the rails, watching
the creature floating still in a
shining pool cast by the pier’s tall lights, motionless, until
with a full body jerk, it swims away,
heading to the ocean’s deep waters, away from land, away
from us, away from him, and chaos erupts on the pier’s wide
planks, voices relieved and amazed –
did you see the size of that thing?…
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Best viewed in the Northern hemisphere in July & August
He’s unbalanced
despite what neighboring scales suggest.
My faint companion; visible
not always
& sometimes even in-between phases.
Always off fixing (or breaking) a system of binary
stars, travelling along the yellow sea between
Beta
Nu
Xi.
Ascension
as the Hunter sets.
I remember the burn of your sting.
– Janet Dale
Author’s Note: “Scorpio” is part of a series featuring the twelve zodiac constellations.…
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You´re old enough now to name
the unnamable, wear it like a bracelet
clasped around your wrist at birth.
The long-legged spider I crush to quell
your fear and mine is no longer
an arachnid but a concept,
its stillness scuttling through your body
days after I flush away its remains.
At bedtime, the It rises out of
the swamp of your mind, prowls
your dreams, famished. Unicorns,
half-colored drawings, chocolates, coins
of sunlight, your cat´s sleek meow
all gorged, as if life were a dazzle
of lies tumbling about in kaleidoscope.
That plastic forever, cracking.
Nightly, you run into the kitchen,
fear trailing you like the last stark
notes of a funeral hymn, your face
a graveyard of questions. Where
among the tombs of truth and fable
shall I tuck you in?…
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This evening, I ended my walk
with a terrific skid.
Just as I recovered
the sun peeked out
from wherever it had been hiding,
to warm my neck and face
and the streetlights,
as if to share in my relief,
flickered to life.
It took me back,
to one of those flights
from Hawaii or Japan
that landed at LAX at dawn
We banked
and I could see
the sun’s earliest light
sharing the stage
with runway lights
backgrounded
by a city so calm
and gentle
I had to pinch myself
to remember where I was.
You and I no longer
worship the sun as god.
Yet doesn’t the sunset,
for all its colorful hallelujahs,
bring with it the same odd unease
that drove our
primitive ancestors to light
bonfires to coax
the sun back to life.…
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The holes in the heels of my shoes
admit snowmelt and tiny pebbles.
Slopping around the neighborhood,
exercising my fistulous heart,
I feel electric blue abstractions
riding the chill. Being alone
with the mist blown from the marsh
and the roadside puddles grinning,
I don’t have to explain to you
the absence that three quarters
of a century of living have imposed.
The short day draws on itself
like a gray man smoking a pipe.
I’d say, listen to the wind undress
the already half-naked trees—
but you’re at home stroking the cats
and reading about current events.…
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Three days after I stopped coughing,
I got dressed to leave the house.
Put on my oldest sneakers
Certain they’d be burned at the end of the night
Along with every other surface exposed to the virus.
Your scrubs are on inside out,
My wife said.
Prepared with full battle regalia:
Bonnet, face shield, N95 with another outer mask
Goretex suit, shoe covers, two pairs of gloves
All hopes pinned on extra layers of skin
Keeping bad things out and good things in.
Don’t take your gear off under any circumstances,
I instructed my team. We spent
13 hours afraid to drink water.
Sweat soaked, I stepped into rooms
To get phone numbers, call loved ones
Yellow gowns, blue tarps, red blood
Are all I see of those first shifts
We remember not knowing how this will end
And we don’t want to go back.…
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A tarmac arrowhead released from between the trees –
shot forward with each step. Feet that echo,
scream in hollow bursts of three, are close behind.
The asphalt river is banked with hands that claw from their soil beds,
gnarled fingers twist in agony at their shed skin
lying in the road, red fish like a million paper cuts.
Tonight a car comes around the bend up ahead.
The lights slash at the darkness, flaxen wounds like two gateways to heaven.
I choose neither and it growls deep in its engine,
illuminating blood and fur before it buries itself in the burrow of black behind me.
I’m wading through waist-deep water now, anchor limbs screaming
‘you can’t run, not towards blood that’s already dried’.
A dead deer.…
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