A Trailer of Speech

When I opened the book, I read

so much about suicide, but saw

nothing about speech, the ability

to roll behind you. It is a symbol,

of course, a second order, sensical

as both of us. I saw you in my dream

last night, with your small wheels,

red lights, happily square and moving

black along the street, as we all do

when we feel useless, disgusted

by all the smoke in the air. And then

I was amazed by how you managed

to navigate without me. Slowing

when necessary, approaching

a sharp turn, carefully addressing

what’s nearby. After decades

of neglect, you rolled up a curb

and landed softly on cemetery

grass, where I picked you up in awe.

You were there to explain the situation.

Whatever I need, you haul for me.

Now, when I open a book to learn

about speech, I just close it again.

In Search of a Poem 

facing east. Before scarecrows fill our town

square with cemetery stones paler than vale

light, I gasp. A northern harrier hawk, full-

throated, takes the slick-edge granite, cocks,

hunches, sees our lives in ten caws of death.

If that makes sense, then face south and west

with the hawk. I didn’t expect pain, loss, desire,

or return. Somewhere farther west strength

overcomes adversity, diversity springs, lurches

aloft, and leaves me alone again. If only to sigh.

Hello Voice

I use my hello voice to wave to the encountered

on my walk. One man, on his sunbed, smokes,

allowing the breezes to wave back. I’ve never

heard his voice. Another cannot hear me for the

TV that shouts its own hello as I pass. There’s

voice in the rotted stump, fungi-filled, turning

all harry-haired to me like an elephant nose,

and what I hear is as quiet as a swallowtail,

waving back, following me from curb to curb.

I remember when it flew by me as a caterpillar,

slow and deliberate as the best flown voice,

taking its grand ups and downs with precision,

explaining to me how life happens. Such clear

speech in the voice of the gutter. One man told

me the complete story of his roof, the layers

of volume and nails, every missing shingled

sigh, the wrong foundation like a diaphragm

without a subfloor that couldn’t support

its own voice much less prevent a leak,

much less speak, but what I hear, I share.