Pain

You’d think we’d have figured it out by now,
what to do with all the pain, what to make of it,
this natural resource everywhere abundantly
fallow, in every corner of the world, every
corner of the body; you’d think by now we’d
have invented a formula for converting it into
energy or food, or cancelling it out completely,
dividing it by itself or the farthest star or else some
denominator we have yet to imagine; build it up
into something or break it down into nothing, pulverize
or patent it, put it in bottles, barrels, tanks, silos full
of what motivates us, kills us, brings us forth.

Pocket Comb

When I found the complimentary black comb
the school photographer gave to my son,
with its pointy black teeth like pure
evil among the toothbrushes, I was frightened
because I didn’t know where it came from or how
it got into the house and onto the bathroom sink.
Nothing prepares you for these invasions,
these divisions of your home by the denominators
your own child carries around in his pockets
as smooth as stones. The magic of childhood
is not knowing where you end and the world
begins; is carrying pieces of the world around in your pocket
like charms—a dead beetle, a harmonica, deciduous
teeth, a complimentary black comb. The magic
beans get planted in the most unlikely places, grow
enormous and hairy in a bathroom in the time
it takes to lift the seat, take out the garbage, tie
a sneaker. One minute he’s biting into the hypotenuse
of an egg salad sandwich you cut diagonally
in half for him, and the next thing his nipples
and navel have formed a face, a mystic triangle, a man
in the moon in the body, luminous and aloof,
outstripping the clouds, following you over the earth.

Laconic

He sounds so far away, he could be
in Sparta, where terseness of speech
was a matter of reputation. His
voice, on the rare occasion
when it pokes out of the gravelly
tunnel of his throat, barely
clears his lips with a syllable,
a single vowel that passes for a greeting
when he passes with a grunt.

So far away, he could be underwater,
the vowels bubbling up so that
it sounds as if he’s drowning.
But he’s singing. He likes it
down there where you can’t
reach him unless you’re willing to jump in
yourself. And he knows you aren’t willing.
And he knows he’s safe. It may seem
cold to you but to him the water is warm. He may
stay in for a few more years. When he comes out
he’ll be older in ways that will be hard
to put the wrinkled tips of his fingers on.