A Thousand Little Gifts

Today I wrap you a bundle
of matches; tomorrow I wrap you a flame.

You have been brought in safety
to this bright new day and then
enclosed in some inscrutable
darkness.

So I bring you a thousand little gifts and lay
them at your door in hope that your eye
will catch the low gleam of silver paper and
you will think that it is a light somewhere and
you will remember that the light is with me and
with a flicker of desire you will perhaps
reach toward the handle of the door to
reach for me. I’m here.

But the hand of the Lord is heavy; your hand
is heavy too.

I wrap you a joke, one of your favorites, and
then an incantation.

Three days from now I will have no more
paper and I will lay myself down
to push my wishes underneath your door.
I will stay. Till I am all the way empty I will give
in, give up, give out, for
you, for give.

A thousand little gives. For you.

Photo by Ole Jorgen Bakken

mumble mumble mystery

We’ll make the writers scribble paradox instead;
we’ll put a stop to the word incarnation.

We’ll pull the word out of the mouth, a series
of silk scarf syllables, pull the magic
out till we each have to feel our own teeth
and mumble the word mystery.

Mumble, hark the heralds, mumble,
in excelsis, mumble, shepherds pie
and indigestion, running to the run
down room to find *that thing* wrapped
in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger:
mumble mumble mystery,
mumble mumble bow the knee.
What is it? Manna?

No word comes to mind,
to heart, to pen, to tongue,
to have or to hold.

We the magi have come for a star
and have found a toddler. The command
-ment stands so we kneel and open boxes
of our best doctrines, our very best words,
that you, small king, may be crowned with
incarnation.

I Took Flea Bites

with me into the 8th grade.

There was an uprising every night,
teeny tiny terrorists jumping
up from the carpet where I slept.

—Or were they drawn? Were they in
love, irresistibly attracted
to my body, pulled up
in the beam of my warmth?

No one else was in love
with me that fall. I wore

old clothes,

walked in the classroom
like a hanger holding up
my dad’s red winter jacket
that he got by turning in
cigarette UPCs.

I carried fleas in each pocket.

But I was at peace with the fleas
and with Heather O’Dell
who kicked my backpack
across the science classroom.
I had just signed my name
with the peacemaking Jesus
and my pledge to turn
the other cheek was so fresh
that it cut the sting of each slap
right away and I offered
everybody gum—

Cotton Candy Bubblicious.

It was almost too sweet,
but irresistible,

like me.

1997

A Whole-Body Exercise

For 100 days of summer and 300 days of winter

I heaved a shovel. I was digging. I sweat and I froze

and my head throbbed. Pains ran down my legs like urine.

The same shovel on the same dry earth on every different day.

I’m out here with all the other thirsty workers getting paid what?

A dollar a day. One day, one dollar, enough to sharpen a shovel once a week.

On the 401st day the last blister on my palm broke open and ran clear.

Pain snapped down my arm, wounded hand refused the handle.

Feet enraged by endless dust kicked the useless shovel,

mouth twisted in mean disappointment, and a wail

swallowed in the belly. I fell, kneeling, to the earth.

Furious, uncontrolled, I scratched my way to

hope.