Emergency Room
The receptionist is calm.
An old woman
is trying to vomit
behind a figured curtain.
A white wimpled nun
slides by
automatic door
closes without sound
against rubber bumpers.
Squeal of burned baby
rises to dog whistle soundlessness
behind another curtain.
Two security guards in tight Hessian blue,
pistols on hips,
walk around a supine third
who lies,
chest bare black against white bandages,
on cold chrome trolley
for x-rays.
It is 12:32 A. M.
and the doctor is explaining test results
to the ear
of a beige push-button phone.
Pain sits in straight-backed chairs,
crouches on couch cushions,
holds its guts
before ambulance entrance,
raves in a draped alcove,
waits to vanish
one way or another.
Explorer
The man who had never eaten spaghetti,
hard to believe,
of course,
was nevertheless eager to try.
“How do you do it?” he said
to anyone willing to answer.
Ordinary to some,
it looked formidable to him,
strings coiled in whiteness
with blood sauce
like a tangle of tape worms.
Someone said around a smile,
wrap it in the tines,
twirl it to submission.
Cut it,
end to end,
another friend suggested
or just
suck it up.
Dog History
There is only pavement here.
Odors float, invisible cirrus,
from weeds in cracks
between stones or from dried urine
disappearing except to dog’s scent.
No dog is naked, although
unclothed they present
buttocks to the sun
and consider genitalia
of chance acquaintances.
Without past, each writes
present with raised leg
or natural squat tickled
by grass or capricious winds.
No heaven waits perfection of dogs
but other dogs
sniffing, running, eating.
