Three Poems

Cycling pantoum

In order to make sure the past’s okay—
Like checking for my pen, my phone, my keys—
There’re memories I cycle through each day.
Long practice means I can do this with ease.

Like checking for my pen, my phone, my keys,
I picture those I loved once, what I needed.
Long practice means I can do this with ease,
Rough times smooth out. Their pain now superseded

I picture those I loved once, what I needed
In order to make sure. The past’s okay.
Rough times smooth out their pain. Now superseded
They’re memories I cycle through each day.

In order to make? Sure, the past’s okay,
Like checking for my pain. My phone, my keys:
Their memories I cycle through. Each day—
Long practice means I can. Do this. With ease.

Sheltering in Place on Sabbath Eve

I FaceTime with my mom each afternoon—
Her house is somewhat south and to the west,
But darkness here means darkness there, too, soon.

Last week (my desk looks east) I saw the moon
Just rise at dark: as though, at night’s behest,
Its phase was timed to rise as afternoon

Gave way to twilight here: a kind of boon,
A guardian spirit to protect our rest
Though it will darken now, and all too soon

With such sad steps descend from midnight’s noon—
An hour later there. She puts the best
Face that she can on things each afternoon.

And as we talk, time syncopates its tune
So she’s behind the beat. My interest
Is to defer what darkens there so soon,

Whose coming is, for all, inopportune.
Her face seems lit by Sabbath lights she blessed.
I face time with my mom each afternoon
The darkness here means darkness there, too soon.

Eurydice and Eurydice

We each saw the other a little ahead:
Orpheus saw me, I am sure,
And had no reason to turn back,
And I saw him ahead of me,

And as it got darker, towards the surface of light,
I lost sight of him, in the darkness
We had so many years ago set out for
Together. I knew the route though,

Knew where his steps were taking him.
By imagining his steps I could take the same path,
Merge into the same darkness,
A darkness finally the size of a world.

That’s what returning to the world meant,
Returning to it fully, to its full dark,
Not like the daylight which is only ever
Half of things, always behind,

Always pursuing the dark back of the world
Faced towards the universe,
The darkness that never looks back.
Our walk took the same dark shape

In that darkness, as that darkness.
But I wanted to see it a little better,
With the youthful eyes I once thought
I would pierce it with,

So like Lot’s wife I looked back,
At young Eurydice, radiant,
Alone now in her unknowing radiance,
And I stopped dead, like a pillar of salt-tears.