Orbit
When I have stared too long at my guilts
and the world’s horror (even sex
can make me shut my eyes
when it’s awkward and on film),
I climb through a trapdoor
in my eyebrow into my notably heavy brow-ridge.
There in the bone, disguised as bone,
lie miles of gangways. They range
in shade from hate-green
to terror-beige, but have mostly
the elusive hue of steel.
Bunks, whether in rows,
or in the cells of officers,
are taut and void. The posters
on some bulkheads are
sentimental glowing cottages,
or Playmates from the great days
when suddenly nothing was hidden.
But mainly there’s steel, and the light
described by survivors of the Lyubyanka
as burning everywhere all day and night.
With my eyes shut, there’s no sound.
With my eyes shut, I’m not afraid
of the vacant corridors: I am
what roams them. In an alcove
a fax grinds out messages
but they’re never exactly orders. And
I’ve no idea if this fortress
is stationary and doomed,
or ploughing the sea or
through clouds, brow-high above the ground.
Omelet
We have another one,
since last week, in our neighborhood.
Three houses down. He sits
the way most of them do, by his garbage cans
and recycling bin;
sometimes by the side of his house
where the sprinkler hose is coiled for fall.
Old warm clothes, a blanket – even
a watch-cap, which looks strange
on his office-worker’s face.
You can tell it’s getting to him.
I saw him steal a drink from the hose
and look speculatively
at squirrels and another neighbor’s dog.
Now he’s weakened and gray. Rain is forecast;
the leaves come down on him and the yard
he doesn’t stray into.
The wife sold the second car (his);
comes home from work and doesn’t go out
and never meets his eye.
It must be hard, but they’re disciplined.
I give it another week.
Then someone – she, most likely – will make the call.
He did the right thing. It’s terrible when
it’s the wife, or a woman living alone.
They dress up, if you can imagine that –
jewels, if there’re any left –
or just a housedress and a robe.
They seldom last a week.
And some are … vocal, a strain
on everyone. When it’s kids,
it doesn’t bear thinking about.
It’s different, I’ve heard,
in minority neighborhoods. They form gangs.
Run around like chickens without heads.
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