Magic

I wish for magic:
Sparks shooting out the end of a wand
to cause small inconveniences for those who have wronged me
or poof up a bouquet of roses for a forgotten anniversary
or to summon my cell phone from across the room so I don’t have to get up.

I also wish for spells that heal;
mending a broken bone in an instant;
sucking out cancer to hover in a black mass and then disappear;
calming my insides – our insides – so waking up in the morning
isn’t just another disappointment.

I wish for magic for wounded children
and the tired woman who works the streets, hating it,
and for the grandmothers and grandfathers who linger, linger, waiting
for permission to go. I wish for magic that could stop death
and magic that could bring life.

But today I can’t think about that. Today magic can’t help me.
My days are still long and lonely; my friends are in pain.
Babies are dying and people are starving but they are so far away, so far away.
My selfish little life consumes me. So, instead,
I wish for magic to summon the TV remote,
so I don’t have to get up.

Eulogy

Send me to sea on a vessel aflame
Flesh and bones to be seen never again
Only the sea will remember my name

There is a darkness I never could tame
Hatred and death swelling up from within
Send me to see on a vessel aflame

To be something special was never my aim
Weakness of spirit was my greatest sin
Only the sea will remember my name

Where did this hate come from - who can I blame?
I wear the marks of you here on my skin
Send me to sea on a vessel aflame

Day after day I surrender to shame
Knowing there's no way I ever will win
Only the sea will remember my name

Now send me back from wherever I came
Only in death can my journey begin
Send me to sea on a vessel aflame
Only the sea will remember my name

Elijah on Carmel

After you gave the world a miracle
you gave another to me. You slipped yourself
into the myofibrils of my quadriceps,
the oxygen-rich surface of my erythrocytes,
the stratum corneum of the soles of my feet, so that
my muscles could contract tirelessly,
my lungs inflate with ease, and the miles
pass smooth beneath me. I ran faster than horses.
Maybe not so amazing
after fire that ate bone and stone, but a miracle
nonetheless.


Jehovah, you remind me
that everything is yours: your hot breath
feeding the complete combustion of blood and soil; your fingers
swirling water vapor into clumps of cumulonimbus;
your palms pushing gusts of wind
through atmospheric circulation, and I think these thick raindrops
are made of your tears; tears for the four hundred fifty men
you commanded me to kill.


When the king arrived in Jezreel on his chariot
I was there to meet him,
and the horses snorted and shook water from their manes,
and the sky cracked and growled, and rain –
the rain fell, and we lifted our faces, we rubbed it into our hair,
we caught it on our tongues, sweeter than manna,
and prayers trickled through the wrinkles in my cerebral cortex,
and my heart sang
You Are, You Are, You Are.