the close of winter

We fight against the close

of winter

with our drive to go

on, not to stop

and sleep or beautifully

watch.

With blades and spades

we further our path

though we don’t know where

we are going, or

why

and in our deepening desire

for meaning, the snow

also deepens

around our tired knees.

It would be so simple

to let it stop

us, if we could believe

the stopping would not

do us in

if the in were actually where

the living is. If being

alone was really enough.

bruxism

For weeks I have had pain in my front tooth, which is capped. It all began with a lunch hour nap in my office. Last week, I began to think I might need a root canal. Doesn't that procedure bring terror? Thankfully now root canals are quite benign compared to the pain, and so I was resigned to it when I went to the dentist Monday to check on the tooth. After an x-ray, Dr. Stone said I don't need a root canal. Joy, relief! He proceeded to file down the cap so that it wouldn't nip my lower teeth. I sleep at night with a bite plate because I clench my teeth (called bruxism), which has eased sensitivity in my teeth over the years almost completely. But, when I take a nap on my office couch, I don't have my bite plate. Perhaps that should change.

Bruxism

My teeth throb

after waking from a nap

on my office couch. I clench

my teeth in the forest

of sleep where mind-snakes

glissade across branches.

How many they are! Metallic,

white as chalk, mortally

virulent in the heel of my

spirit. Consciously, I try

to hold my jaw open

like the gate of my head

against the kilim pillow

where a tribe of stick men

armed with blue and red

woolen stitches hold firm

against embroidered beasts.

But as sleep moves its cloud

across my face, a small

warrior clamps shut my mouth.

Awake, I feel in the great walls

of my teeth that this fortress

held true against marauders,

quiet now, asleep

alas — inside the tower!

peanuts

Peanuts, peanuts in a bowl,

floral blue and white,

old Chinese porcelain blue

like the sky today, an upturned

bowl on pedestal trees. You

remember two days ago

when it all dumped out — rice,

wet and sticky while we watched

disbelieving from these windows,

thinking the world could never

go hungry with so much falling.

But today grackles — naked, poor,

immaculate — prove the nothing

that I know under the tree,

peanuts disappearing

from the bottom of my bowl.