Jack Baty

“That’s my boyfriend!” she tells us as the grey-haired man pushes himself slowly backward. Using his feet. The wheelchair moved more easily that way.

“I think the world of her,” he says being careful not to move too quickly lest he jar his neck brace. (She calls it a “halo.”) His age amplifying his injuries

Her face, at age 91, beams as he says this. And she suddenly looks exactly as I imagine she did at age 18 Kind words will do that Those kind in particular Especially in this place

why can’t I go insane
the way other poets do?
why not blame them for this mess?
why not find the same excuses
and follow faeries into the darkened woods
where we all move about freely
and rhyme?

“What the hell is this, then?” “f I didn’t know better
I’d say it was poetry.”

Well, that’s exactly what it is, I say.
Especially since you don’t know better
anyway.
It may not look like poetry
unless, of course
I wrap each
line
like this.

Then who’s to say?

There are things I must do all of them terribly important today they are terribly important Certainly there’s a mown lawn a clean car, a balanced checkbook a collection of tasks gleefully crossed off one list or another all leading to a future safely lined with the comfort of having finished so many very important things

But in the meantime Where is the art? When will the poems be written? Where is the love? Who will teach me to play music – and when? And what will the children remember?

the dress reveals nothing really (cotton, isn’t it?) but quietly suggests the subtle and delicate promise of all that Spring has told me and never gets quite right.

clarified now by soft color against the perfect whiteness of skin clever Spring! never spoke of you one hand touches both flower and flesh as Spring sits silently…waiting.

There are glasses on the nightstand
The pair she reads with
Being now the only thing next to me

They gather and focus the sunlight
coming in through the window
onto the pile of unread books

hearing that the drummer has begun She – being the dancer – moves, smiling slightly behind closed eyes knowing this particular rhythm

ignoring the confused stares i – watching the dancer – sit very still, nodding slowly as if in agreement knowing that particular smile…

…and begin to sing.

the nibbling and gnawing uncertainty of a new faith fear of being consumed eaten alive by imaginary things and some not quite

trust deserved, offered even yet tethered by tiny ropes disappearing into fog and dust anchored by them and then and longing to be cast off severed by that firm reliance spoken of, but not quite realized

whatever shall we do with it that which has made lovely again those things once turned so awful the thought of (well, you know) and the other things unspoken until now

I’ll tell you

we breath it in and savor justly owed not and paid none but in time becomes equal and fear lives on one side balanced as if by the weight of so many ghosts waiting to be put to rest

this takes it elsewhere and here moves it to nothing and all circles and centers and wraps and unwinds frees and ensnares it ends and

begins