Two Plus Two Equals Five from issue 50
And so a toy drum equals a Saturday Night Special
a boy grows up to be a foot doctor, a little girl
subtracts yes from no and lives out in the sum,
multiplying it by minus one on her death bed,
saying, “yes father, I’m coming, don’t leave me,”
while a stuffed rabbit equals a lingering goodbye,
goodbye to the one face we’ll never see again,
except in the past (that string unwinding behind us,
because you’ll never know when you’ll have to go back),
and so the one wedding gownㅡpacked in moth balls
in a cedar chest in the attic ㅡdivided by a fieldㅡ
blanketed with snow and unmarred by footstepsㅡ
equals a fierce longing… yet, for what, the man
who talks to himself can’t say, only that it has
something to do with frost-bitten feet, and someone
who plays the flute and someone who beats a drum,
and many marching forward, always forward
and always in step, always… and so one broken nose
equals the scar from triple bypass surgery and the return
to a simple way of life, if we could only get there,
if we could only find the perfect mattress
on which to flop, the perfect soap for washing off
the day’s residue, the perfect moment to unveil
our new hope in the equation that explains everything.
Chances from Issue 58/59
I dimly recollect going through the neighbor’s garbage
at 13, remember that kid snooping into matters
he believed would make him feel better, see him
coming up with a discarded love letter
that has become his life’s bill of rights.
Now those faded letter mean all to me.
They say help. They say i love youㅡwhy don’t you
love me? They hiss under their sour breath,
go away, please. So I reckon I tucked this message away
for memory’s sake, held on to it because of nothing, because
I had no good reason to smile with crooked teeth
at what the next word would be, because I can promise
I did not know. But in my time, many yeses have walked
right up and shaken my hand, as if they’d known me
all my life, as if I owed them at least this much:
a warm and friendly greeting on the street.
I’d better use it against danger. I’d better never
let it go, or one day the money machine
in some backwater place will not give up
my money; it will display so matter-of-factly:
You only get so many chances.
