Affects of Independence, 2004
Celebrating Independence Day
Ribs-up, the half pig, roasting on its side,
is spitting fat into the hickory coals.
A child—who’s gaping, frightened goggle-eyed,
fingering all her blouse’s button holes—
cries out, “What’s burning up, on grate and poles?”
She runs and sobs, “Like—Daddy—in Iraq!”
Her mother hugs her, wraps her in her frock.
At Motor Vehicles
If brain-dead, would I give away the eyes,
the kidneys, liver, heart I do not need?
Should I, on license-back, all these devise?
Recipients’ needs I readily concede,
but “harvest” teams’ intents are hard to read . . .
My own is: Let this body calmly pass—
release my heart from its long hourglass.
Conundrum of Movement
(After Zecharia Sitchin’s Earth Chronicles.)
How take The Unmoved Mover, moved to make
the Anunnaki—and the likes of us?
What moved this? Love? Too utterly opaque!
The Unmoved Mover moved? Ridiculous!
It won’t save us to read Leviticus.
Yet human eyes turned inward may, when ashen
at what they see, be moved to feel compassion.