A Meditation on A Meditation of Frost

1

Affection is a dumb dog.
Whoever said that
didn’t own
me, 
was not
my master.


2

Because you are unkind
to me, you have become
less beautiful.


3

Today is the anniversary
of every other day. Insofar as
no one knows 
anything new 
about love.


4

“... because I forgot
how soft...”
I heard you say
as you turned me over
like a split white fish, 
ribs flapping. The other half
of the sentence lost inside 
your other manuscript.


5

Time stops
for no one
OR
as the plaque outside
the now closed Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School reads,
We shall overcome


6

“If you were alone on a desert island
and could only...”
Most questions are intended
to distract us
from their answers.


7

Scientists are now harvesting
seeds to save for when the world
goes dry. No one will eat when 
we’re stuck to the sides
of canyons, rinsing our hair
in debris.


8

“I’d bring a book on birds...
or a bird.”
... maybe a piece
of old-fashioned
silence.


9

Everybody has their own thing
that they yell into a well about


10

A play is only the set
of actors available 
that day.


11

Elves, backyard pit barbeque, lilacs,
termites in the backseat:
the sum of it makes a person
want to: lemons, lemons, lemons.


12

Death makes
several preliminary
announcements:
I see you.
You’re next.


13

Good advice is misused almost as often 
as Q-tips:
you’ve got a grip
but you can’t get at
the hot orange mess.


14

Death, my best and most
insincere opponent.  
I’m ready for you this time 
with fists of sand.


15

Someone in the office drinks too much.
Antiseptic, booze, metallic spearmint tinge,
I follow it 
from break room to 
cubicle. That was me
in my 20s—up all night,
fucking fucking fucking.


16

“Look.
It’s the great wide 
whale of heartache, 
beached.” You don’t know
the size of a thing
until it dries up
in front of you. 
“What eyes!”


17

“Believe me, 
________ will only hinder
development 
slightly.” The doctor
and her mother don’t see
this as problematic.
As she methodically eats
everything in the candy bowl.


18

“Expectation is a person’s belief
in a prevailing
order.” Even a dog
has an ego. A crack addict’s dog
is most likely smarter 
than you.
Judge and be judged.


19

“Light, the only
living proof of salvation.”
Bare bulb, hanging.
Slashes across your 
photograph.


20

The BIG clue
is the first dabble
in desire.  
If you had to sneak 
it and if you keep
sneaking. Love, you know,
isn’t a secret. It’s the bam bam
catastrophe. Here I come, 
with confetti. Just try and
knock me from this moving float.


21

Horror is self-
referential.
Choose Halloween costumes
that bore you shitless.


22

After the funeral his mother and father
stood, swaying, in front
of the crowd, turquoise beads
pinching her throat.
They were temporarily reconciled.
My own mother, next to me,
weeping for God knows what.


23

Cowardice is shaped like an axe.
My axe-shaped bed.


24

Because they seemed to have
what you wanted
(jean jackets, porches, un-
complicated lives),
you trembled,
flushed and moist in their
presence, the muscles
of your neck straining
like earthworms
across a very dry sidewalk.


25

Sure, you can get away
with all kinds of lies and fabrications, 
some even worthy
at the time.
Then you die 
in the big wooden 
chest of glory
alone.


26

“Pelagic” is a word 
that means “occurring in the open
sea.” This will mean nothing
to you
unless you live underwater
with birds.  
I’ve been waiting
for the tiny dot 
of your boat on the horizon.
An act of magic. 


27

Take me down lightly.
I do not think it goes
all the way.


28

Hello, 
big black shiny deep
understudy
of the hole
I’m going to be
if I can’t live
up to my current non-potential.
Stay back!  
I’m getting good
at faking failure.


29

A river makes 
many entrances
in and out of a city.
We’re being 
made love to, don’t you see?
Bend over that bench.