Portraits
Traveling Alone Across the West
Vernal Equinox
Every time I see a picture a person displays
of him or herself, I think, That's actually how
you want us to see you! Not the accidental candid
drivers' license photo. I mean the one you use
to say, “Look, this is me me me!”
We all share the pathetic and forgivable truth
of choosing that picture. Beggars at heart,
the whole lot of us. Wanting recognition,
wanting to be loved for that distorted likeness.
This one of me, for example. No wrinkles, beautiful
hair. Earnest but friendly expression. You have
to take this man seriously. I hope some lonely
and yearning part of you loves him too.
At least we have the humility to admit our need.
What about the person who won't allow
a picture to be taken. Imagine
that person's pain! That person's fear! Imagine
that person's unquenched burning need for our love!
Traveling Alone Across the West
3 days of a live Nature Channel
At seventy-five miles an hour. A marathon
Documentary of landscape, changing from
Smooth to jagged edges of buildings, refineries
And still the tame horses, the wild antelope,
The meandering Yellowstone River
I cross three times. Rocks, emerging lichen.
The persistent sagebrush.
A sagging barn, a scraped slope.
Age is a precious thing; it is a gift
With ruthless claws and teeth.
Cahoots Coffee, Selby Ave., St. Paul
We're here to taunt the deceptive smile of spring.
Through the winter-smudged window
I watch the fading snowbanks give way
to 60 degree sunlight. Dead sheep, I think.
The snowbanks are like decaying sheep, their entrails
curling out in the form of November twigs,
December Miller Lites, February dog droppings,
and last week's newspaper. Their inner skeleton
of ice glows, not like a sign of hope but of stony despair.
Minutes ago when I crossed those snowbanks they
crackled like crushed crystal, like winter's death rattle,
a giving up to what the robin on the bare branch says it knows.
One young woman (God, her blond hair is lovely,)
wears a flowered sun dress, but a woman across
from her wears a dark hooded sweatshirt and curses
French auxiliary verbs. At shoe level: sandals
on some and fur boots on others. We're all
confused about something, and we know it.
At least, I do. Spring is coming? Maybe.
No, it is not coming. I try to imagine green lawns,
earnest robin songs, lilacs, ripe tomatoes on bending vines.
I know better. Coffee shops are safe scenes
for denial, for ambivalence to parade as certainty.
I'm even drinking decaf. The robin outside revises
itself with a nervous twitch. Does it know that North Dakota's
Big White has awakened from Canadian slumber
and ambles toward us, sure-footed, determined to deliver
unto all of us, the bare-armed and wool-clothed alike,
the inevitable truth? The robin knows. We all know.