Vacant Virgin Bookstore, Utah, 7 January 2018

Waiting for daughter to materialize
Out of the thin, dry, warm-for-winter air
In front of what used to be a used bookstore,
A little brick building in the desert,
Body listened to static and words floating
In from that very same air. A myth of a girl
Who was the best and brightest of her class,
Poor but preternaturally gifted, the future,
Who screamed in horror when she saw
The better education that had been denied her,
Was being promulgated over the radio.
The reporter who sought her out could not
Find her. There was some manipulation
Of the supposed-to-be true story to create
Suspense, but then the radio crackled,
The voices evaporated back into thin air
And an only semi-mythological daughter
Rolled up, riding in the back of an old truck.
The sun shone, the mythical truth forgotten.
The shelves remained empty and dusty
In the shadows of the Virgin Bookstore.
The only cure for story is never to finish one.

Snow Falling on Parked Cars, 6 January 2018

What could I write that wasn’t this?
What could I have written, guaranteed
To save my life? We sat around the table
After breakfast, debating the ecosystems
Of publishing in this blinkered world.
There had to be a small adjustment to truth
Just slight enough to make it rain.
By the time I actually began to write
For resources floating out there somewhere,
That morning rain had changed to snow
And the better composition ruled outside
The window. A lesson fell. Those flakes,
Whether or not they really were each unique
And we could tell, wrote a message on cars
And walls: nearly innumerable minor changes
Are the minuscule creators of real worlds.
Anything repetitive without a difference,
Anything, is a myth and a simulation.
But I kept writing anyway, kept faking
The winning background pattern, one eye
On the slowly filtering, world-transforming snow.

Tea Grotto, Salt Lake City, 5 January 2018

The server was clearly incapable
Of handling a minor rush. Poor thing.
Can you reserve some compassion
For the ordinary, for the ordinary
Miseries and failings of this ordinary
World? I have never been near a death
Camp, nor a refugee camp, nor a war zone,
Nor a quarantine, nor a natural disaster.
I don’t trust my instinctive compassion
For them. What do I know of such suffering?
I have been in hospital beds; I have fallen
To the ground broken and screaming.
Those I do know. But what I notice is that
Even in the absence of any pain or horror
A dull day can be hard, hard to handle well,
And compassion for the merely flummoxed,
The insufficiently competent, the harried
Can be hard to come by. I tried. I leaned
On my crutches, sagging as I waited,
And thought, she’s beyond her capacity,
But she’s trying. The ordinary city traffic
Rolled by dully, inconsiderately, outside.
I was beyond my capacity, but I tried.

Taking in the Evening, 1400 E, Salt Lake City, 4 January 2018

I didn’t do it properly. I only stole
A few moments at the window
With the lights still off inside
And watched an egg-and-pearl-light
Afternoon slipping behind the houses
Across the street. A man walked
A pair of large black dogs on leashes
Down the shadowed sidewalk. Nothing
Else moved visibly to my eyes. There,
There was the moment you could almost
Want to last forever, knowing it was boring,
Knowing you could never bear it, but
Wishing that you could because it was
So quiet and uncluttered, the afternoon
Dimming, the great black dogs trotting
Peacefully on their tethers, the inside
Of the house dimming as well but warm,
Warm enough, the bare trees barely
Stirring at even the tiniest tip of twig.

Cross Town, 3 January 2018

While it was perfectly true no errand
Could be run to turn back time, to the extent
That time could be sensed at all it had to be
Drawn as an inference from an incomplete
Difference, and the incompleteness
Of each difference created what we sensed
As time and space, the latter a secondary
Shadow of the former. So when, for instance,
A shambles of an often-broken man
Shambled into the county services building
On an errand to begin a passport renewal,
The incomplete difference of that experience
From an earlier experience of entering
Officially the same offices to procure a copy
Of documents necessary to a divorce
More than a decade earlier, itself incompletely
Different from an experience of entering
Those offices to obtain a marriage license
For that eventual divorce a half-decade
Before that, conjured up a sense in the brain
That time had been turned back, that it had,
In fact, doubled over on itself repeatedly within,
Thus creating, a place for documents, of unions,
Separations, and renewals, which really was
Every place there ever was, although not all
The others were official or in offices.
There was no time at all, you see, except
That turning back time made it appear
So that we could say with that shambling man
Yes, I remember this place—it was long ago
But it was here, and I was here, and now
I’m changed but it’s still here. Not this year.

Truck Accident, Cove Fort, Utah, 2 January 2018

It might as well have been a bomb
From the looks of the remains.
All that was left of the cabin
Was the back wall and black stains.

Any ambulances were gone
By the time we passed the scene,
Although they hadn't left quickly
And the sirens hadn’t screamed.

That half-hour long crawl of traffic,
That moment to rubberneck
And shake our heads, felt bizarrely
Familiar in retrospect,

A queue to the mausoleum
Or to a glimpse of the bier
Where the great leader lay in state
For witnessing, except here

What caused us to pay our respects
Wasn’t the life that was lost,
The great life lived at great cost,
But the black flower itself, the wreck.

Things To Do, New Year’s Day 2018

The places our ancestors placed beginnings

Felt ridiculous in the dark of last night. Why

Couldn’t their calendars have started in spring 

And their days begun closer to dawn? At dawn,

Bleary-eyed and weary but not in the least

Hungover from a sober night watch, body

Was thumped awake from dreams of insolvency 

Too like life when daughter jumped onto the bed.

Any way you sliced it, by then a New Year 

Had unquestionably begun to begin. Begging

For screen time gave way to more rambunctious 

Play, a sunny day spent around the house

Barefoot, discussing eventualities such

As ear piercings and school terms, painting

Glued scrap wood pieces to make a canyon river

Scene, platform for the real project of arcing

A spindly web of bridge from 3D ink over it.

There was wrestling on Grandma’s couch,

A spilled drink on a rug, an hour’s pretend play 

With imaginary monsters who spoke their own

Language of sibilant grunts and taught classes

In which the older monsters drilled the younger

In how to pronounce polite phrases in English,

Monsters being always shadow humans

Reflected back into the waters of our culture

The way secondary shadows waver under

Real water, being themselves water, visible

To anyone leaning over the gunwale 

Of yet another tiny, passing boat. Then,

After dinner, the three generations collected

On cushions to rewatch the Song of the Sea,

And a holiday season vanished peacefully.