Poem 51

This poem is still pretty fresh, raw even. I've tweaked it a bit and am actually satisfied enough to publish it. The idea came while driving past churches on Sunday, and I had another little flash about it that night.
I don't think I would have written this poem unless I had been thinking about Heidegger and technology on Friday.

Easter Service in the Parking Lot

Below the steel cross
with the white banner
visible from I-90, cars
in the parking lot, and along
the street leading to Crossroads
Bible Church gather
for communion of weather
in white-bordered pews.
Multitudes of them
line up at the edge. They
sit among regulars
displaced from their spots
by early arrivers.
As if they had guilt
built up after Sundays in
garages and apartment lots,
cars have come by
force of consciences
dressed in suits or
floral dresses.
A Lexus,
the Ford Explorer with slouched fender,
generations of Toyotas,
at least twelve Civics,
have become like holy sepulchers. Now
they wait for owners,
to clatter out in loafers
and heels on rainy pavement.
For this hour cars have together
in fellowship under clouds,
light poles, crosses,
they mingle and wonder
at how much to-do
their drivers make over one guy
who took three days. They almost chuckle,
the cars,
whose owners will
resurrect them as usual
with the key and adjustment
of knobs.
Such miracles,
witnessed daily,
in the name of getting somewhere else.

Poem 50

I did pretty well in high school biology, but the genetics unit was a bit of a challenge for me. I couldn't tell you the difference between anaphase and telophase without looking it up, but I still know the difference between mitosis and meiosis (Thanks Bill Wagstaff!). It struck me how our cells spend so much time dividing, that at our smallest level of aliveness we are never still.

The part in this poem about cells dividing came from another poem that was foundering in my practice file for a while.

Moving Out

Bleach hands, cardboard hands,
they’ve taped and labeled
and signed a new lease.
Now they roll the rented dolly
stacked with the TV
up the ramp to the truck.
I repeat the trip for kitchen,
bath, CDs + DVDs,
and other boxes: harvests
and seeds of rooms.
Each fits somehow,
even the last junk boxes
I leave open in the back
because, who has time?

I shutter the truck, lock,
and go back in for
a last look at
carpet scarred by furniture
pressed into the fiber.
There are fewer wounds
left after scrubbing
and checking.
The gash of dust
between fridge and counter
closed as the vacuum
attachment soothed.
It was easy to let the place hurt
these years, now
I apologize with floor wax
and Windex.
Can’t be too thorough:
I massage patching
compound into the wall,
healing the wound
of a thumbtack.

Strange how we
leave places, how cells divide -
secret divorce we file for
on day one.
We grow by falling apart,
and hoping genes left hurting,
will mean new agreements.
The charts of the phases,
mitosis, chromosomes,
we learned in school
showed two of everything
before the split, like
for a day or two,
new keys meeting the old
on our rings.

Poem 49

I'm not the first to notice the proliferation of tip jars. As a former tipped employee, I can't blame folks earning minimum wage or slightly higher for putting the palm out there. Starbucks is such a place where I don't mind tipping; I tip if a guy makes me a Manhattan, so why not a mocha? I'm never sure how much to tip though, and it usually depends on how many singles I have. If I have none, I won't throw in the coins. If I have a few, I might tip a buck on a two-dollar beverage. I can't say this sits well with me, but I go with my gut and hope it works out.

The definite article in the title is intentional.

The Starbucks

Above a green apron and
framed by headset
his grin suggests mochas,
the new cinnamon dolce latte,
and yet I order drip coffee.
“Room for cream?”
“Sure. Yes.”

He trades my five for cup and change.
Ashamed of my bare order,
I add a dollar to the tip jar
like some kind of sweetener.
The sound of a nickel
and pennies hitting glass
would clatter over
steamer and grinder, I fear.

Too much?
Perhaps it will cover for
a woman who only uses debit,
or the teen with sweatshirt
and three bucks.
Or maybe it's time to let go.
Cash shrinks these days,
a dollar blending into quarters,
dimes with falling markets.
One day it might trade
at the value of a smile.