I would like to do one more before I read some prose
poems to you.
This one was written for my father when he was ill,
and I was drawn very suddenly out of one locale
and had to fly to another.
It seemed odd for many reasons.
Video Rain.
I am flown to your good side now.
Hiked up like a skirt, the elevator,
intones the cardiac, the cancer ward and finally
the stroke floor.
Like we're always in bed, and need to be reminded
we must all carry our seeds in our heads like flowers.
The insane staking an identity on high tech.
It's time to rethink the entire landscape,
while I still have the body for it.
After years of doing what you did, you do it to my hero.
As I drag you to one side and I wait for the coins to drop,
and the video to begin lighting its commands, I hear a tension.
This is your stress test.
Having to really give all that suffering up.
Having it as a guide, not a destination.
Everything is explained in flight.
I can't stand these elderly stewardesses,
these computer tones whispering forward, forward.
At Atlanta International, there are sharp tiers of fluorescent
on poster babies.
And in eyes that have just come from the freeway,
as from a marriage of Mobil and McDonald's.
Getting off at the right time like a drug, at terminal C
the Olympic games are rerun.
Greg Louganis sharks the pool.
Mary Lou Retton scarfs Wheaties.
Where temporarily I live, on the corner of Asamblea de Dios
and Destino.
There's my exit.
Low tide, a last morning on the beach.
And this is it, isn't it?
The Earth we despaired of with Texaco refineries
and acid rain, and you are having
to take the hand of the man in the moon.
The Black male nurse so clean and necessary.
Like tourists reach for a Holiday Inn in the fog,
as you feel for him, I have been really feeling this country
lately.
Deciding what to do next.
Conscientiously pressing street crossings, like an accordion
which opens into a city.
And the only difference is this really happens.
For everyone, dad, the days are long,
but it seems like we're always in bed.
Sunsets, outside quiet and silent towns.