PRODIGAL HOMECOMING

I was driving to the prison

to see him, the underground lair 

of fluorescent oxbows and switchbacks, lost 

tributaries and dead-ends, Sanitation, 

Electrical, Emergency Exit,  

Death Row, Psychiatric Wing, Holding Cell, 

all monitored by cameras and controlled 

steel doors that open and close as I drive 

deeper into the complex.  Execution 

by Lethal Injection on the left, 

Murderers, Sex Crimes on the left, 

Arsonists, Drug Traffickers, Scam Artists, 

Tax Evaders,  Meth Freaks, Petty Freaks all

on the left, and then, when it seems I will 

never surface, Drunkards, Na'er-do-wells, 

Pan Handlers, Misbegotten, Those Who 

Lack Grace.  I park the car and push through 

the steel door and follow the corridors, 

the same pattern, Derelicts to the left, 

the Deranged, the Mindless, the Impulsive, 

the Compulsive Confessors of Dark Secrets, 

until the hall narrows to men and women 

splayed naked by their own choice -- women sleek 

as harbor seals, tumescent men sprinkled 

with glittery stars, fussing at their self-imposed 

scars like chimpanzees scouring their flesh.  

The last door opens to a room of tattooed 

men and women bound by chains scraping the floor.  

Black and white slides projected on the far wall 

show a splay-toed boy in a potato field, 

then talking to a mynah bird, then 

fishing in a rowboat.   A one-eyed Brutus 

shouts "Hey Don, there's someone here to see you" 

and then a man shuffles forward, the same 

silent man, the same oval name patch stitched 

to his green shirt, the same pencil planted 

behind his ear.  "I see you made it," he says, 

by which we both know we can go no farther.

CHRISTMAS EVE 2008

 

We spend the day tooling the island

on bikes, scavenging Schnapper’s Red Hots,

watching fishermen in mangrove swamps

and flamingos brooding in trees,

drinking green tea and pomegranate,

seared tuna salad. The afternoon ends

on the beach looking out on the gulf,

big waves lumbering in, parasurfers

circling and dipping from the sky and

skipping across the breakers like slick-skinned

dolphins, the gulf’s blue gives way to green

translucence as the last heave crashes,

entrancing us in a drunkenness

of loneliness and desire unspent,

how can we face the elements

and not walk the shore too unknown

from ourselves, too open from the layers

that we cloak ourselves with?  Who here

is not awestruck? Staring at the ancient

couples still cradling hands as they walk

with their trousers rolled? Who does not

lust at the taut bodies running barefoot? 

Who does not ache for the child aching? 

Who does not wish to warm the shivering

child in their arms?

 

The sun sets with blood and egg yolk

all smeary across the western gulf.

The shore cools and shallows in dusk

shadow prayer. As we all empty out

we pass the proselytizers

handing out candles at their dug out

weenie and marshmallow roast

preparing for the beach mass,

we hit the bikes and pedal back

through the darkness and the silence,

then drive across the causeway. 

Later, from our balcony, we

see the corona of a bonfire

on the far side of the island—

it must be massive, to reach above

the trees and cross the water and

light up the sky like this.  A sign?  

That some unseen but seen is out there? 

That something brighter than the stars

above awaits us?  That some great

pagan or sacred ceremony

takes place without our knowing?  

Lying awake with the screen door

open we hope for a wisp of

that smoke to cross. It was something

about us, and nothing about us. 

Like a poem, we lay arm in arm,

knowing something and not knowing

anything.

Christmas Day 2009

The waterline's heaped with crablegs,

soft and bloated flesh fingers  

washed ashore like blanched jellyfish, 

a letdown, since everyone here has come 

for the ceremony of the sun, 

the shellers, the beachcombers,

the Koreans whose daughter 

trudges the sand in pink crocs,

the Euro tourists with their cameras 

and sandals, young Russian girls sporting

baby fat in bikinis, their atheist parents

smoking filterless cigarettes, 

fat babies scrabbling in the gray foam,

the grandmothers snoring in beach chairs.

The gulf is calm.  Like a shimmering sheen.

As if molten, where no one swims.  

It is a holy day, after all, 

so there's no washing away of sins 

among the weenies roasting 

on sticks, joggers and oiled oiled-up

weightlifters posing in vainglorious

thong magnificence!

Christmas.  Last night the old miracle

played out again -- lying in the hammock 

and swaying in the darkness, looking

up at the stars, waiting for something 

beyond the nattering pelicans

in the palm grove.  What was it?  

Did we expect another miracle?

A new constellation? A new myth?

We could not read the sky except

for its unrelenting, its insistence,

its seeming absence, now, sprawled 

above the silica and quartz 

and feldspar washed up from the world's 

constant heaving, I am wondering 

the age-old question,  Who are you?

Who have you been? and When will you 

know?