Hernia

Help me, I've fallen

into the pit of mortality,

the rot of the body,

the ruins of a being

I no longer

recognize.

I'd be happier, freer

as a Paramecium in

a Petri dish.

If only my skin

was a cocoon,

I'd wriggle out

into a new form,

not butterfly-beautiful.

I'd settle for mosquito

or amoeba.

Everything is enemy,

the sky, my work,

my memories

infest my hippocampus

like determined termites

burrowing into knotty pine.

Heaven is closed

and so is my colon.

Open, Sesame, please,

deliver me to dreams,

from nights of fearful,

fitful sleep.

I make my own music,

bark hard syllables

from mouth to feet,

a kick, a plead,

a cry over the commode.

My sphincter's frozen,

my bowel's busted,

my urinary tract's backed up.

I'm sick of being in pieces,

a cesspool of yellow and feces,

waking up five times a night

while the Moon limps along

like a broken hobo under

coffee stained clouds

and the wind blows sand and pebbles,

polluted music, across silvered stones.

I pray: Poke me, probe me, prod me.

I'll denounce beauty if need be.

Turn me hideous or Homo Habilis,

return me to some semblance

of what I was. I'll do anything

to live life again and pee freely

like an unobstructed

garden hose.

They Sent A Photograph

Oh, happy family,
silent and bright, smiley.
The oldest boy, thirteen, wiry,
a lean bean plant growing
at his father's side.
The younger one, Afro-ed,
exuberant, almost leaping
out of frame. Mom,
coy yet confident,
doing what she
must do - succeeding,
so she thinks.
Dad,
the pillar of dreams,
stands in the back
looking taller than
Kilimanjaro clouds
that push down
on the world.
He holds them at bay,
Atlas of the Suburbs,
but only for seconds, until
the shutter snaps open-close,
and he can no longer
hold that pose.

Monday Morning, Somerville

I rise out of body lighter than hydrogen,
avian, I leap from uncertainty, strife,
fly unhindered on fluid wings
like a Crow disappearing
into the distance.