Genesis

I come from the Cheyenne Country Club where chubby hands

        hold highballs and gin rummy cards in the smokey bar

        where desperate status seekers clamor for superiority 

        in our smelly piddling town

I come from a mother who told me

        a week after my father died

        that they never fought

        until I came along

I come from the man with the Fleishman’s Bourbon bottle wrapped

        in brown paper carefully cradled in the crook of his arm   

        a Kent cigarette caught in his booze-dead fingers  

        Mom and I pillars that held up his House of Drunk

I come from eating two spaghetti dinners at the Tivoli Restaurant

        while my father drank and watched me balloon in gluttony  

        watched mother stuff me into husky-sized jeans

        watched me weigh-in at 164lbs in sixth grade

I come from miles of novenas and worn-down rosary beads

        until one night while dry humping my Catholic

        Republican girlfriend and springing a gusher in my pants

        I chose sex over Jesus

I come from marching with toy rifles plastic canteens fake army helmets

        until I grew up and discovered I had no right 

        to kill another human being    traded death for life

        gave up war for peace

I come from kick-beats and rimshots behind four black singers

        the Kansas City Soul Association in Cheyenne 1966

        smoking each other’s cigs drinking from the same cup

        blowing minds in a racist world

I come from Plato Nietzsche Sartre and Camus

        from an unexamined life to the search for truth

        from the Übermensch to the cave to the sun to the mountain

        from existence bled essence to the fall of suicide

I come from Hemingway Dostoevsky Jim Harrison and David Kirby

        walking in the rain drinking to put lost lilies out of mind

        returning to earth counting birds redeeming suffering

        writing until it’s all seriously funny

I come from nothing and to nothing I shall return

Not For Sissies

The way you now use four 

clumps of toilet tissue 

        instead of three

The way you place two hands

on the couch to push with

        before you get up

The way you have to make 

a plan about what to do 

        in order to get up

The way your back hurts 

no matter how long you

        do stretches

The way the tangy taste of garlic

wakes you in the night—cramps

        more than your style

The way you know the first names 

of the doctors and every corridor

        in the Emergency Room

The way a dewdrop on a leaf

makes you think

        of a tear

The way you wake up and check

your wife—wait until you see her

        bedclothes rise and fall

The way you snuggle up to her

your hand on whatever you can

        find that is warm

Yearning

Grandpa always sat in my dad’s old 

green chair by the big picture window

that opened onto our tiny street. He’d

pound and pound on his leg, just above

his knee. It’s the only thing that helps,

he’d tell me. The doctor said he needed

a knee replacement. I don’t want to have

this pain for the rest of my life, he’d say.

Mother made fun of him. He’s eighty. How

much time does he think he has left? His 

wish for a new knee made sense to me. I  

was fifteen, full of hope. He could get better.

Now, at seventy-five, I know that something 

is always out of reach. Whether it be a pain-

free walk or peace on earth. I was seventy when 

I realized that I’d never read all the books I’d 

gathered over my lifetime, that my library was

a tomb of yearning and aspiration. Something 

about that was both horribly sad and strangely 

comforting. Today, my doctor blushed brightly

after he told me that the RSV vaccine he 

wanted me to get was for really old people. He 

was so embarrassed. He apologized profusely, 

and that’s when I knew he loved me.