Negative Space

Who can fathom a heart’s fixations? There is a squirrel—one particular squirrel, I am convinced—whose coordinates of desire are precisely calibrated to a perennial and unsightly gash in the windowbox, a ragged rupture of soil just between the kalanchoe and the fuschia. Only his obsession grows there. Seedlings, ground cover, weeds—whatever might fill the gap is torn out mercilessly, desperately. Nothing is left in its place—no nut set lovingly aside for winter, no hoarded chest of gold doubloons. Only a hole—a hollow neither man nor squirrel can fill, but which remains, waiting, longing, wondering what jewel may someday be found whose every facet fits.

Ode to the “S” Key on my Keyboard

after Pablo Neruda’s “Odes to Common Things”

Do you know,
brave captain,
what is in store for you?
Both leading
and following your
soldiers
into battle,
you will be
the first to fall
beneath
the hammering blows
of the enemy,
your face
worn away,
unrecognizable,
slain,
since you never
surrendered.

I would
save you from
sacrifice,
and yet
cannot
do even this
without
your help,
my steadfast
scribe.
What can I
say
without you,
or how even
say
that I
say it?

Your sound,
so sibilant,
soft as a
snake’s sneakers,
a susurration
of simple
sequences,
sliding and slippery,
snows gently
upon
my senses.
And yet, too,
you scintillate,
a sequined soloist
shining
in splendor,
seeming to
surprise
even
the startled
stars.

And so…
and so
you see
that even here
at the
end
of all things,
of all plurals,
of all ones
that would be
twos
and threes,
I need you,
I savor you,
I seek your
supreme
summation of all
the seeds of life
into the
superlative
super-plurality
of the cosmos.