four careers and not done yet –
currently a teacher/blacksmith
well familiar with the heavy
anvil, tortured heat and vigorous
pounding needed to transform the
iron bar – crafted in the fire
of broken marriages and
bones, used to dance, now
watches all his dear Pandoras
carrying jars pregnant with hope

disembodied poet on the loose bom-
barding small town open mikes,
newsweeklies suffering the slings
of his barbed brush – please tar
and feather me with language,
comrade, lord of squids, traveling
with your sidekick, Elvis – nice
to meet you (note to
self: next time you see
this one, let’s get real)

what’s it like to live
immersed in history – personal, political,
town, state, nation, new country
and old, situated rarely in
this complex matrix, aware yet
mobile, moving with the poise
of a professor, polished, Polish,
integrating pose with flow in
daily immigration – opening this envelope
(within an envelope (within another))

strawberry secrets underneath her cloak,
lead strawberry of the strawberry
brigade supported by a phalanx
of appliances, a strawberry waffle
maker, luggage cart, an SUV,
conferences in the parking lot,
making decisions on the stairs,
questions with a thin veneer –
I ask “Who are you?”
and “Why are you here?”

stern unlovely nun a blackrobed
skeleton wrapped in faded ivory
skin with eyes and nose that
never needed sharpening,
suitable for the principal of
St. Emeric’s elementary school –
every year on picture day she
called me over and with
touch as pale as Easter sunlight
brushed my long brown hair

lady of the flowchart, hire
me, I thought during the
interview, her large hands playing
with the thin green plastic
template with its cutout geometric
shapes – I wanted to play
with templates, got more than
I bargained for, and within
a year or two, her cunning
templates became completely obsolete

cherub with red curls,
my brother’s childhood friend –
once upon a time
the two of them got stuck
while playing in the mud
of Farmer Ralph’s adjoining field
(a hazard of subdivisional life in Illinois)

what is the purpose of
this cautionary tale that re-enacts
the helpless mess of boys?