Practice

Locker rooms reek of sneakers

and sweat socks, but

band rooms have their scent

as well. Brass and spit,

plush cases marked

with cork grease or valve oil,

dry cleaned uniforms

never quite as sanitized

as they pretend.

The sniff in the nostrils

is like a reed on the tongue

of New Orleans jazz,

the touch of mouth piece

and lips, nubs of the ball

on the dribblers digits,

the liturgist's sacrament.

Latches

Brass latches close.

            Forbidden they say

                        in the finality

of their clasp. The secrets

            inside pass beyond

                        the present

to the dust-laden future.

            Prying fingers

                        will decode

the language of privacy

            assigning errant

                        signification.

Silica

Glass cabinets hide their treasures

behind transparency, deceptive

they are like Poe's letter,

concealed by presence

rather than absence.

They deny the reality of dust

motes in the gaze

of a hundred eyes peering

through refractions

that presume imagination.

The minds behind the eyes

draw the stories they choose

from the images they think

they see, figments of a world

remote, yet intimate.

Grabbing those Golden Stars

Reaching in was always the problem.

Courage rested between beak

and slender arm. That hen never

wanted me to take what was hers,

and she'd defend the laying box

she believed to protect fantasy

chicks she saw in her beady eyes.

But I was an enthusiastic adversary

knowing new shoes for school

depended on the eggs my mother

sold in town. Reaching in hands

learn survival and acquisition

on the way to caregiving,

and the displacement of bias.

Innocentia

When her brush stroked

those fat cheeks, chubby hands,

she could not know

that Goebel would give

her iconic images form.

How would a novitiate

know that her concepts

would draw Nazi wrath

or carry global hope?

The coin tossed in the air,

lingers in liminal space

before its called, destiny

distended above the heads

and tails of probability.

The Merry Wanderer grips

his satchel and walks on.

The Hunt

Lanterns almost white

against the blackness of the night,

carbide hissing, igniting

the burn of youthful desire.

Boys like miners thread

their way through the dense

undergrowth, listening

to the distant bay of hounds.

Raccoons scurry from tree

to tree, testing the dense foliage.

Climbing high, they hear danger

in canine cries, and their hearts

beat against the sudden stillness

of the night. The forest sniffs

acetylene burning and knows

its vulnerability as boots

crackle across the leaf-laid pattern

of the flooring. The imminence

of death drips against the earth's

elements, and life trembles

as the dogs move in to tree

their prey. A rifle cracks and the thump

of furred life descends in the false light

of reflected lamps and panting boys.