The following poem appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of The Los Angeles Review, a journal from which, "Perhaps . . . something can emerge that speaks to the writer or singer or dancer or wild person in all of us, something disturbing, something alive, something of the possibility of what it could be to be human in the 21st century."

Pray that it Were Otherwise, But the Hard Work of Life
Isn’t in the Tapping of the True Thought, But in the Building of a Pipeline to Deliver the Goods

I have no son, no daughter, but say out loud

Clean your plate, son. Eat your spuds.

Think of your growing muscles,

son. I wait for a Yes, dad

to come from the dust

I’ve never bothered to wipe

from the high shelves. Having heard third-hand

that an old friend’s infant daughter

has died, I buy a bouquet of flowers

at a chain store.

Because I buy most of my plants

for a couple bucks each it’s a tribute

to tend to each minute of today

like it’s an expensive new tree

from a garden boutique.

The involuntary twitter

in my left cheek, near my good ear,

is seismic, my geology

okaying a volcano burst.

The refrigerator

isn’t saying a thing about food. It’s droning

a dirge. Is there a better way of saying

Bill, it’s been too long

than Bill, it’s been too long?

On the back of papers

a company wants me to fill out

and return, I draw (badly) the underground

parts of a family tree. Without the trunk, etc.,

my doodle looks like a nest.