1
We’re like the ships of Ulysses, always being blown off course. Hurry up and undress, before the blood dies in our hearts again.
2
The gossiper whispers behind his hand, repeating what I said, something horrible about annihilation and dust. You can hardly hear him above the music.
3
I feel a little less certain every day. The sky looks as if it’s just been patched in several places. I go bareheaded so that the ripples of thought will be easier for you to track. By three things is the world sustained, the rabbi says from the pulpit, and then names only the first two.
4
Shut up – please! The dog continues barking. I go to the window. There’s nothing to see, no door-to-door evangelists coming up the driveway, only some neighborhood children standing with their heads bowed and birds flying about, trailing what looks from here like the long, fiery tails of comets.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of the new poetry collection, Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to a crisis center, which you can read about here:https://sites.google.com/site/rhplanding/howie-good-dreaming-in-red.
His chapbook, The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers, has just been published by Flutter Press.
© 2012 Howie Good