"Also in Tucson."
"Between hope and despair, a house in the desert sits empty.
The wind, from time to time, thrums a piano,
even though the piano is shut tight.
And the windows are sealed so the alarm rings
and rings and no one responds.
Mice are no longer saved who have
fallen into the pool in the hours before dawn.
They descend to the bottom, mostly babies.
The manager of the dead comes once
a week, Tuesday mornings at 7:30,
and lifts them out with a net and puts them in a dark pouch.
Where do they go from there?
Once, on the wrong antidepressant,
you became hysterical about bugs in the pool, each one
of which you needed to save.
I thought I was strong and could help you,
could see that your sympathetic nervous system was flaring.
Because you would, at any cost, the cost of your own life
by drowning, need to save them, the
flies, the snakes, the butterflies, the swarming bees.
And many were saved but not all.
And finally, you saw this was inevitable.
This was living and dying.
I never could help you, although I lived through
all your hysterical ailments.
Your brown eyes did not want me to help
and, eventually, I turned away.
Now my gaze goes from the inside of my head to the night sky
and skips your gaze entirely as you willed it.
If a person would lie to the person
she loved because she had to, because circumstances were
such, then it is in character that this kind, hospitable liar
would trowel down to the bottom after a helpless chihuahua,
a prehistoric-looking creature who
has made an egregious mistake that could cost her life,
only because she was thirsty.
In your right mind, everything and every one is worth saving.
But the more we tried, the more saving and loving each other
became incompatible.
In the end, it is a fact that you
lifted a young and therefore highly venomous
snake to safety.
And it is also true that you inflated
the flat, depleted moon when it fell into the pool
and returned it to the heavens calmly and responsibly.
In a culture that is unaware of poetry's magic
in its mythologies, I beseech you,
you who once wrote poems, which is how you no doubt came
to be a familiar of celestial bodies, please,
please become one of the helpless who
did not mean it when she said, you sad peripatetic moon.
I'm no longer in love with you.
Separated from you, I see the crown of crescent moon--"
I'm sorry.
"--separated from you, I see the frown of crescent moon.
So you've not taken up my request.
When the moon lowers, slowly rocking and finally falls,
I can return you the favor sincerely and put it back
where it belongs, as I suspect you always
hoped I would and despaired that I was not capable.
Granted, it is merely a shaving and the rest is in darkness.
Thank God no one can see me looting the dark pouch
for the dead mice."
"Tucson Midnight."