THE CORNER

 

Another punishment from childhood,

as familiar as going to church or setting

the dishes out for dinner, was being sent to stand

in the corner, intersection of shame

and boredom, to think about what I had

or had not done, to gaze into nothing

and plan my humble route back to forgiveness.

I learned well the corners of every home

that we passed through, their particular silences,

removed from the clamor of daily routine,

the television's canned laughter, voices rising

and falling, bellowing from room to room.

I memorized the vein-like cracks spreading

through the eggshell plaster, air bubbles

beneath the paint, the fine, stray hairs

and wisps of spiderweb long since abandoned,

knew precisely where two sheets of wood

paneling came together, imperfectly,

the slender nails that held them,

and where the tiny splinters slept hidden.

I couldn't help but wonder why I disappointed

God so often, and why I seemed so far

removed from his sacred image.

I learned to sleep standing up, unnoticed,

learned to count obsessively the ceiling tiles,

the inward folds of curtains, and wallpaper patterns,

learned to turn my mind off, and on,

and off again; I became still, became a very

fine singer in the auditorium of self.

I learned, through necessity, that my place

was just off to the side, resting

on the warm shoulder of my thoughts,

and that even the smallest hint of disobedience

could send me back to windowless solitude,

and that the wrong words spoken

could bring the whole structure down.

SOAP

 

God only knows what casual blasphemy

or stubborn refusal of chore had tumbled out,

but there I was, a child of four, made

to kneel upon the smoke-yellow linoleum

of the bathroom floor, a fresh white bar

of soap clenched between my teeth.

I was instructed only to wait. To speak directly

to the Lord and await his forgiveness.

I cannot say whether it came, or not, only that

the wait dragged on for what felt like hours,

a thousand years to the Creator being one day.

The soap did not make my mouth feel

any cleaner, nor make what came out of it

lighter, every uncertain lisp and stutter floating

like bubbles up toward the heavens.

I tasted only shame, a chemical bitterness

lasting the whole length of the day.

I understood words to be weighted things,

meant to be avoided whenever possible,

and God the Father, forever holding

his tongue, to always be listening,

always ready to silence with the back of a hand,

a sword, or a book thrown suddenly open.

GHAZAL ON FAILURE

 

I can't take credit for every one of my failures.

The best of my mistakes were not made on my own.

When the butcher puts down his blade, he is a Buddha;

but the poet without a pen is simply on their own.

Love's rough bargain offers the world and more;

all that it requires is everything you think you own.

Sleep thickens in the corners of the lover's room.

Even together, we bear the weight of years on our own.

The long shadow of rain crosses my brother's grave.

There is no Why, it repeats; you are on your own.

When I was a child, I could draw every world imagined;

It was no punishment to be left on my own.

Perhaps we grieve most that which never arrived,

a palpable absence that claims us as its own.

The anxieties of youth are lessened by those of age;

but the worst of our lives is not all that we own.