Rereading

Rereading the poems of others

and my own. Community across

time and graves. What's left

exceeds in significance

one's last moment. Yet

his last moment must have been

exceedingly important

for the poet.

Nothing he did that day will seem meaningful.

While we prosecute the war

a pileated woodpecker and red squirrel

compete for sunflower seeds.

A winter slow

to assert itself.

I can still see my mother's father and his bowl

of filberts, almonds, walnuts

quiet weekday mornings.

Both grandfathers read sports

pages religiously. I don't know

if my grandmother who gave me the

anthology of, to date, dated

unreadable poems read poetry.

I remember my mother's mother spoke

rarely as an animal.

Writing but not knowing where I'm going

unlike Joan Didion justly

cannibalizing candidates

who didn't read the Constitution, Bill of Rights or

Federalist Papers. It's late, 

I have not vacuumed or shopped for food.

Instead I reread

Phil Levine's Salami.