Elephant Rocks

n any collision, one strikes;

the other is stricken. This

is a given with the nano-

calculations made possible

through silicon.

Earlier centuries depended

on testimony to know

the bender from the bent,

and often judged an act

by how it ended. Many bumps

were simply abandoned to the

morass of simultaneous action.

Love being among them.

Wooden
In the presence of supple

goodness, some people

grow less flexible,

experiencing a woodenness

they wouldn’t have thought possible.

It is as strange and paradoxical

as the combined suffering

of Pinocchio and Geppetto

if Pinocchio had turned and said,

I can’t be human after all.

Distance
The texts

are insistent:

it takes two points

to make a distance.

The cubit,

for instance,

is nothing

till you use it.

Then it is rigid

and bracelike;

it has actual strength.

Something metal

runs through

every length—

the very armature

of love, perhaps.

Only distance

lets distance collapse.

A Plain Ordinary Steel Needle Can Float on Pure Water
—Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Who hasn’t seen

a plain ordinary

steel needle float serene

on water as if lying on a pillow?

The water cuddles up like Jell-O.

It’s a treat to see water

so rubbery, a needle

so peaceful, the point encased

in the tenderest dimple.

It seems so simple

when things or people

have modified each other’s qualities

somewhat;

we almost forget the oddity

of that.

Sonnet to Spring
The brown, unpleasant,

aggressively ribbed and

unpliant leaves of the loquat,

shaped like bark canoes that

something squashed flat,

litter the spring cement.

A fat-cheeked whim of air—

a French vent or some similar affair—

with enough choices in the front yard

for a blossomy puff worthy of Fragonard,

instead expends its single breath

beneath one leathery leaf of loquat

which flops over and again lies flat.

Spring is frivolous like that.

Surfaces serve

their own purposes,

strive to remain

constant (all lives

want that). There is

a skin, not just on

peaches but on oceans

(note the telltale

slough of foam on beaches).

Sometimes it’s loose,

as in the case

of cats: you feel how a

second life slides

under it. Sometimes it

fits. Take glass.

Sometimes it outlasts

its underside. Take reefs.

The private lives of surfaces

are innocent, not devious.

Take the one-dimensional

belief of enamel in itself,

the furious autonomy

of luster (crush a pearl—

it’s powder), the whole

curious seamlessness

of how we’re each surrounded

and what it doesn’t teach.

I have written

over the doors

of the various

houses and stores

where friends

and supplies were.

Now I can’t

locate them anymore

and must shout

general appeals

in the street.

It is a miracle

to me now—

when a piece

of the structure unseals

and there is a dear one,

coming out,

with something

for me to eat.

The trick would be to be

part Midas—to have

a switch inside us

we could flick at our

pleasure. It would be

nice to plate a chalice

or turn the neighbor’s dog

to treasure or add

mettle to lettuce—

to practice playful

acts of malice, table-

top amusements—

stopping short

of where the goblets

started breeding goblets

We know it is close

to something lofty.

Simply getting over being sick

or finding lost property

has in it the leap,

the purge, the quick humility

of witnessing a birth—

how love seeps up

and retakes the earth.

There is a dreamy

wading feeling to your walk

inside the current

of restored riches,

clocks set back,

disasters averted

Any morning

can turn molten

without warning.

Every object

can grow fluent.

Suddenly the kitchen

has a sulfur river

through it;

there is a burping

from the closet,

a release of

caustic gases

from the

orange juice glasses.

The large appliances

are bonding in a way

that isn’t pleasant

on linoleum as friable

as bacon. We never

fathom how we caused it,

or why we

never see it coming

like Hawaii.