All right, moving right along.
I think I can say at this point, this is probably your two poem
warning.
It's a tradition in the world of poetry
that you get the two poem warning.
I could be wrong, though, because I'm
on the edge of my seat.
I don't know what comes after this,
but this is called Standing in the Forest of Being Alive.
I stand in the forest of being alive:
in one hand, a cheap aluminum pot of chicken stock,
and in the other a heavy book of titles.
O once, walking through a cemetery, I became terribly lost
and could not speak.
No one living knows the grammar.
No one could direct me to the grave,
so I looked at every name.
A heavy bird flapped its wings over someone's sepulcher.
Some of us are still putzes in death, catching bird shit
on our headstones.
Some of us never find what we're looking for,
praying it doesn't pour before we find our names.
Certain we're headed in the right direction.
A drizzle begins, and what's nameless
inside our veins fluoresces, fluoresces in the rain.