JUST AS WELL YOU DIDN'T WANT TO BE KING

 

Since you're not Banquo or Macbeth

We're not witches right now; we have

No prophesies for you. Our cauldron

Is filled with soap and boiling water;

Return to us when you have laundry.

AFTER THE DEATH OF SMALL ENEMIES

 

In synagogue, will everyone rise

For the mourners' kaddish?

Will you light yartzeit candles

Every day just when twilight

Forbids your eye from telling

A blue thread from a green one?

Will you wonder: all those destroyed worlds --

What would they have been like?

PRAYER

 

The oni's god is powerful

But dangerous. He is also 

Deaf. Before praying 

Try banging on a pot for

Fifteen minutes or so

To get his attention.

CHANGE

 

After years of threats and promises my better self

Has found at last someone else to be better than. 

This has, of course, required considerable paperwork

And an administrative restructuring. For now,

I am myself only on nights and weekends

While working -- provisionally -- from my better self's office

(He left his file cabinets locked but my worse self

Opened them with a paper clip.)

GENERAL FITZWILLIAMS' WILL

 

To the maid Mary Rocke he left 

Stocks, some cash, an annuity

All his shirts, two nightgowns,

His lace ruffs, a snuffbox

With his dear wife's picture on it 

And his gold dumb repeater watch.

(A dumb repeater keeps time 

Just as well as those that speak; 

It simply doesn't brag about it.)

NB

 

I am a note in the middle --

I think I'm in the middle --

Of a very long notebook. The author

Wrote me down meaning, I'm sure,

To return and work me into a poem

But he never has. I blame his habit

Of writing in no order so page 17

May be written after page 206. Also,

He often writes in the dark. I am,

I'd say, quite a good idea. If you know

The author tell him he could do worse

Than look again at page 551 

Of Notebook 46B, about halfway down.

SIGNS

 

When she's six blocks away

The windows begin to shudder in their frames.

When she's five blocks away

Every towel in the linen closet refolds itself.

When she's four blocks off

The credit cards in your wallet cancel themselves.

Three blocks? Your inherited silverware

Now has strangers' initials deep-etched in.

Two blocks; there's no time to find a new reflection;

You must comb your hair and shave without one.

When she's one block away, all the doors in your house 

Unlock, then lock and then unlock themselves again.