SOCKETS

Music and morphine
hid the truth
behind sixty-two
years of hardship.

Faith was a shining
example of distance,
shooing away
what only wanted

to welcome him.
He died of being
ready when the
time came. We

extracted pennies
from his eye sockets.

IDEOLOGY

My cat is so
busy being a cat
she sometimes forgets
what ideology is.

Soldiers cast bodies
instead of shadows
in the reflex action
we call "war". Chutes

fail to open inside
them. Pilots land
their planes in a
memory we have

of their nonstop
bombing raids.

Happy Birthday, Asad!

OPUS
for Asad

A god with sad
eyes and the body
of a bridesmaid
assembles itself

out of bits of
paper gathered
in slums and
pasted together

to make some
sort of recognizably
artistic statement.
The resulting "work"

elicits consistent
kudos from the critics.

LIGHT

A word like "light"
sounds brighter
than it is, and
clearer. You feel

like you can see
through it the way
the mirror sees
through you to

the other side
of you, where you
didn't realize you
were until it

was too late
to stop.

SHE

Because her tears
rimed perfectly with
her fears, I invited
her inside. She fell

into a dread of
depths, hoping it
would eliminate
her fear of

heights the way
one x cancels
out another
x in some

cockeyed equation.
It didn't.

HERO

The hero carries his
death with him in
his pocket. He
takes it out

every so often
to make sure it's
still intact. He
inspects it, puts

it back in his
pocket, then jumps
off a tall building
to see if he can

fly. He can't, even
though he's a hero.

BRIEFLY

Something I caught
you thinking yesterday
was mine, so I
took it. You may

want to replace
it with a
wish or a whim
(or an overnight

journey if you've
got one). The
thought was mine.
That's all

I have to
say about that.