Dear Prime Minister of Canada
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, PC MP

On behalf of your neighbor to the south,
we surrender.
Since you set ablaze our White House in 1814,
we have tried to resist you
we have mocked your accent
rejected your poutine
stolen your best actors
filmed Oscar-winners in Vancouver and called it Seattle
and neglected to learn the geography of your provinces

that ends today.
invade us,
we now offer no resistance.
bring us your socialized health care
your mandatory two-week paid vacations
your high literacy rate and clean streets

we will begin adding extra “U”s to our words
pronounce Honour, Colour and Armour
as they are intended
we will adapt our tongues to “A-Geinst” and “A-Boat”
remeasure miles in kilometers
pounds in kilograms
turn our thermostats down to minus-15,
in Celsius, not Fahrenheit
and adapt our skins to the inevitable northern winds
soon to blow hence,

just to show you we’re serious
we’ll even submit to two years military conscription
— even through Canada doesn’t have the draft —
our kids would do better building Third-World clinics and schools
rather than blowing them up

send your Mounties south
we’ll great them with open arms,
our citizens will drive just below the speed limit
and start smoking copious amounts of marijuana,
but do so responsibly
as you so nobly taught us 

we will begin shortening our sports
from four quarters to three periods
for nostalgia’s sake, baseball will stay at nine innings,
but we’ll concede to call it American Cricket.

Dear Prime Minister Harper,
welcome us as your brothers and sisters in the Commonwealth
put in a good word for us with the Queen
we will rename the U.S. Congress 
the Parliament of the United Provinces of Southern Canada — 
it was due for an overhaul anyway —
and spend the next decade learning how that shit works
let us keep Governor-General Obama during the transition
until Her Royal Highness appoints a new French-speaker to the post

By first prefixing the pedestrian “USS” with the regal “Royal”
the Royal American Navy will begin renaming warships
and sail home to merely protect our shores
The Royal American Marines will inscribe
“Toujours fidèle” beneath “Semper Fidelis”
on all their stationary

in revenge for Terrance and Phillip,
we’ll execute Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make amends
but since capital punishment is banned in Canada,
we’ll sentence them to creating tourist videos for the CBC

Once your conquest is complete
once our schools have risen to your minimum standards
once “Bonjour!” and “Hallo” is as common
as “Howdy” and “ ’Sup dawg?”
then I ask one favor
one small request in payment
to the unconditional surrender
of our bald eagle sovereignty
to your maple leaf dominance:

with the border fluid
and immigration law a mute point
I’m searching for someone

there is a girl in your country
she is easy to overlook
because she stays in the shadows
avoids the cameras on busy streets
though you can find her at festivals
dancing barefoot at the center of the world
as though the stars forged visas from heaven
slipped passed the earthly border guards to stand in the plazas
sleeve their glow in human bodies around her
and dance until the setting moon revokes their passports
calls them home to press their lips into constellations
you will not know she is here
until someone asks later if you saw the midnight sun
swirling the street in the afterglow of the stage lights
I’ll admit I’ve never seen an aurora
but I imagine it feels like her laughter
and I know why polar bears and icesheets
stay north of the Arctic Circle
because that’s as close as they can get to her

do not stake out hotels 
thinking she’ll slip in some night
she can sleep in ditches, 
on strangers’ rooftops,
the beds of pickup trucks 
or backyard trampolines,
anywhere she can find 10 square feet
and quiet until the dawn

instead, you can search for her on the wide open Trans-Canada Highway
somewhere between St. John’s and Beacon Hill Park
I know it’s 8,000 kilometers,
so keep your eyes peeled
if you see her, it’ll be by outstretched thumb first
I know Canadian winters can be harsh
but you will identify her by her smile
because it will keep you warm no matter the season
now, her unpasteurized joy will take longer
first, she’ll get comfortable in the seat,
ask you your history
and wait for your story

speak slow, 
tell your story as best as you can recall
she asks many questions and will cross reference your answers
she will forgive a faulty memory
as long as the words as spoken sincerely
and know that even if she’s not listening to your every word
she’s interpreting the sound of your voice
so be honest
do not lie to her
she will see your fabrications before you can erect them
sweep kick them out from under you
and leave you splayed out on the floor
before the lies can even leave your lips

she will play the role of stranger
drop lines of prepackaged wisdom
play her preshuffled hand of cards
but this is still her shell,
her way to test your defenses
judge whether you’re worth a second try
here, I can offer no advice
— she still gauges me with every phone call —
the game has no trick to win it;
it’s a measure of character or honor
something no one can give you and none can take away
if you don’t have it,
you can drop her at the next stop for gas,
and thanks for the lift,
but if she sees it,
she knows you’re worth more than a ride

she will start to unpeel herself like cloves of garlic
each one covered in its own thin armor
let drops of stories unshelter their instruction
she’s taken the hammer and nails of her ambition 
and realized potential to build bridges 
for the rest of us to walk across
and somewhere between Havana and San Salvador
on the Black Rock City playa
over a bento box lunch in Sapporo,
her joy will hit like a hidden tsunami
you didn’t see coming
sweep you away from shelter or shoreline
as those waters fill your lungs
you’ll wonder just how you were so oblivious for so long
how could you have not felt the energy she bottled

in her stories
she will teach you that borders
are lines drawn by men in office buildings 
who live a fluorescent fiction of a world still flat
men who believe maps and flags and anthems
mean more than blood and handshakes and laughter 
men who’ve never dreamed beneath stars she counts nightly
men who’ve never felt the first kiss between sun and Grand Canyon
shake morning reds into the eons-old stone
men who’ve never heard peasants thank Dios 
for a vote that finally counts
in a country that is finally theirs

in these life stories of her travels
you’ll understand why she cast off worn shoes
to walk barefoot in the dirt
and spin fire from her arms in the desert
but leave no footprints to follow
just the earthquakes and scars
in those of us who ache for her return
the way zealots pray for messiahs
in their late night confessions the day before martyrdom
she’s a first-aid kit for boys like me
who didn’t know they were broken-hearted before her
she moves in like chess pieces on a board of checkers
brings a Howitzer to knife fight
lets loose a Pamplona herd in a china shop
but will offer to sweep up afterward

I’ll admit her tomboy tongue blindsides on idle Tuesdays
as if the ancient six-day week cleaved open just for her,
added one more day and said 
“fuck the mathematics of calendars”
if she could sleep for days
cuddled in a boy’s arms
she’d surrender the world
but the urge to burn and rage at end of day
pulls her back into the dreamlessness
there are too many stories to live
too many fingertips to touch
tornados can’t stay stationary either despite the scenery

if you can’t find her on the road
you can search the boxcars,
ask hobos about a girl made of hula hoops
whose pulse thumps in rhythm to railroad ties
pickup all the hitchhikers you find
and en route between points A and B
subtlety ask if a dark-haired, brown-eyed dancer
with weathered hands and a black bandana
has recently shared a meal with them
offered to manufacture a tutu or 
sew leg warmers from leftover sleeves

know that in summers she melts into the woods 
to reforest what we clear
make amends for civilization’s sins
with a shovel and bag of saplings:
maybe this one will grow up to be a peace table,
this one a roof for a homeless family,
two lovers will kiss beneath this one,
and their grandchildren 
will be buried beside its roots

Yukon men won’t admit it
but they came century too early
and weren’t looking for gold
they came to clear the roads for her
give the earth a wound for her to heal
to train her surgeon hands

if all else fails, 
you can coax her into the open
by leaving out a plate of melted cheese and fresh garlic
I guarantee she is unable to resist them
it make take years, so make it fresh every few hours
and she’ll track you down one day

once you find her
give her a warm bed
with no annoying alarm clocks
keep her unchained and unlocked
left free to roam or return on her whim
she may pilgrimage to ashrams or overlooks
or cathedrals cut into stone
awaken the third eye in prophets and psychics
who’ve never looked too deep but foresaw her coming
she instigates greatness in those too afraid to birth it themselves

she may still wander away in the day
call down the sun and the moon to dance at dusk
beg Orion to share her arms
and press her lips against new strangers

but if she leaves you, do not chase her,
she befriends guerillas and revolutionaries
who give her sanctuary like she was a daughter
they will fight to keep her unyielding
know that she growls back at coyotes
chases them from her playgrounds
and though she may ache for warm limbs beneath bedsheets
she  can find midnight outdoor air just as soothing
she’s too fierce to hold on to too tightly
she can bite open a boy she loves from the eyebrow down
so imagine what she does to transgressors

I will not fault you if she leaves 
just let me know where you last saw her
point me in the general direction of her last appearance
she’s worth the pursuit
whatever you may think of her
she is more

Dear Prime Minister,
if you vow to search for her
if you promise to give it your all
you can have this country
take whatever you want from it
import our monuments like the caesars did obelisks
rename our parks after your heroes
impose your laws or revoke ours
redraw our states into a grid
or the image of Pikachu
it doesn’t matter to me anymore
just demolish the borders between us
erase the lines that divide

leave the office building 
to share the blood and handshakes and laughter
without the nomenclature of nations
dream beneath her stars
feel the sun kiss canyons and mountains
give us the freedom of movement to find each other
because whatever you believe I think of her
she is more

There is a Girl in Your Country

A Plea to Kitsune

Unbreakable

Orion

type, type, send
type, type, send
the revolution begins not with a bang
but with a text message

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
you did not sign a declaration
shoot a gun
nor take an assassin's bullet
you ran a Facebook page

Egyptian secret police held you blindfolded for 11 days
promised you would be buried nameless, anonymous

as a Facebook event,
your ghost of Khalid Said,
brought down a dictator

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim, 
you unintentional revolutionary,
sob as the names of boys fallen
crawl across the screen
as Mona el-Shazly asks you to gaze up
swallow the Facebook photos and off-kilter photographs
taken at parties or late-night on-the-towns
images become epitaphs,
boys like us
who before Jan25
watched girls pass by
traded albums and downloaded music
called their mothers on birthdays
and never thought their country
would ever be theirs

if we could stand with you, Wael Ghonim, we would
embrace you as man to man
wrap arms around you to hold you standing
convince you to believe us
that your hands are clean
your soul is unstained
the blood of brothers and sisters on them
wasn’t spilt by you
use it to paint flags
touch it to your childrens’ foreheads
and tell them “this was shed for you,
by men and women who gave more than we did,
it is why you now have a voice
why freedom is more than a noun”

wash it off in the Nile
let it taste of the mother river
swim upstream to the sources
and down to the delta
tell all of Egypt
from Luxor tombs
to pyramid shadows
to the library halls in Alexandria
that your country is free
shake the earth
so dead pharaohs wake trembling
living tyrants flee from their thrones

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
we stood with you in Tahrir
we were the breath of bravery
you felt beside you
when the enemy rode in on camels
we stood beside you
five times a day
when you knelt to pray to Allah
we, atheists, Christians, Buddhists
Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews
we watched your back
stood guard in silence
we were the ghosts you felt
assuring you the world was listening
we don’t know your language
but understood each word
in your prayers because
“freedom” never needs translation
it feels the same
no matter the shade or age of skin,

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because your tears are too heavy for one man
let us carry them for you
permit us bear their weight
because we could not physically stand alongside you
allow us sing our lullabies in 1,000 languages to your children
let us tell them our words for "liberty"
so no matter where they travel
we have that in common

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because you are not alone
you never were

now, sleep,
guiltless
weightless
and free

Revolution 2.0

This Country

 
when your feet grow tired of globetrotting
and all the monuments to forgotten kings
have blurred into obscurity

when your shoulders ache
from carrying your whole world tortoise-style
from one rest-stop lover to another

when you’ve heard all the foreign tongues
repeat the same stories for the last time
and you’ve grown tired of translating

when your shoes have fallen apart
unable to martyr their soles
for your hobo evangelism …

come home
this country still longs for your sunrise
its geography is easy to map:

to the East lie my arms
curling inward to hold back time
their digits stretch northward
ten fingertips on separate crusades to find you
they unite only to pen poems about
the futility of kidnapping you across the borders
back into the caverns of my chest
overwhelming vacant since you stole its last inhabitant
which you unraveled the way Hansel and Gretel taught
to fashion a string to trace your route back here
these cave walls still shudder with your laughter
turning ribs into organ pipes
I play in dreams to orchestrate your reconquest
fool my yearning that you are only a hitchhiker’s thumb
and an hour from my doorstep —
a lie, but at least I can sleep through the night
without filling the hollow in my bed with my wailing
instead, try to keep it warm for you

to the South
are mountains of memories
impossible to scale without oxygen and a Nepalese Sherpa
they stretch to the clouds and in winter, blot out the sun
I chip at them with a pick axe of ink
take the pieces home to an orange juicer
attempt to squeeze out story after story
told in Homeric fashion
the gods of Olympus jealously dwarfed in the shadows
find their epics insufficient
Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Arjuna
camp in the foothills unable to scale you
talk about the good old days
when there wasn’t so much poetry in which to live
on the cliff sides I hunt for the road trips
the afternoon siestas
the midnight embraces
the slow Sunday mornings
for new word wombs
new poems to trap, take home, raise to maturity
and release back into the wild
for the world to see how you changed this boy
I will climb them as long as a pulse thumps me into movement

to the North is an ocean of your words
tide pools of sentences
waves of your stories
tsunamis of our arguments
to wash over any fool who braves to sail them
on maps print the words, “Here Be Dragons”
and I’m never sure which will swamp my boat
or carry me home
white-tip arrogance soothed by Sargasso Sea gentle honesty
choppy squalls when I lost myself to ego
pleas for forgiveness offered on Yom Kippur
all the poems over the phone blowing lost sailors to safe ports
someday when I have outlived you
I foresee abandoning shoes,
gripping frail hands on armrests,
rising from wheelchair
striping down to unflattering Speedo
and walking into these waves to drown
up to my ears in the waters of your laughter
filling my lungs with drops of your whispers

in the center is a house of paper
naked 8½ by 11s begging to be bathed in black ink
the first 30 stories are made of rough drafts
in preparation to meet you
the upper stories will be built to celebrate you
and when I reach my 90s
the tower will collapse with the weight
spreading the pages across this county

Billy Collins keeps an apartment across the hall from Derrick Brown
they meet in the lounge with Shane Koyczan and Ed Mabrey
have coffee on Sundays with R.C. Weslowski and Mike McGee,
each reading a new ode to you
they found that week on the cabinet
under the sink or behind the door
banisters Bill Campana will jot haiku 
from window frames slam poems Klute will read aloud after bagels
dueling in rhyme with Shappy Seasholtz
sonnets on fireplaces Dan Seaman and Mikel Wiesser will read in tandem
on weekends, CR Avery, Scott Dunbar and Lights
will play the ballroom made of canvasses
echoing through the vents all week long

on the upper floors
poets yet unborn ready to join to the conversation
there is room here
for whomever you choose to fill the house with
forgive the flesh of this man
for being made of flawed skin unedited
he knew not what he did
you always liked me better on paper anyway

to the West is an open country
as far as the eye can see
lie no walls nor borders
no future beyond what we make of it,
without a horizon to fall over
sunsets are unimaginable,
the land yearns for your footfalls
and I will chase you across it
until these feet break beneath me
never ask if it was all for naught
until you have seen the country you built here
the boy you reshaped who lives out in the open
uncertain of where to go now
penning poems from dawn to dusk
dreaming of your open arms
reading them to anyone who’ll listen

when you tire of travels
when you need shelter to rest weary limbs
when you want to see a boy left better
than the one you first met
this country is wherever you choose to meet me
ready to welcome you home

This Country: When You Tire of Travels, Come Home

This began with “I miss you”
nestled deep in the liver of pretty words
dancing illusionary around platitudes of nostalgia
the way lynchings and pogroms and Jim Crow 
take a back seat when waxing poetic about the Roaring 20s

this began Art Deco
all smooth lines and steel rising above New York City
when Chrysler and Empire State vied for the heavens
when we could still see heaven

but this revisionist history
ignores begging in breadlines for something warm at night
the amputees returning home from the trenches
missing limbs from land mines

you were the flash bang landmine
ripping smiles from this face
leaving me to sweat you out on PTSD nights
wondering if you were coming home to finish me off
you are my thousand-yard stare
you are the war story of crashing hips and desert stories
I would tell the neighbors
when they asked about the scars too visible to conceal

this began “I miss you,”
because I can still remember the beginning
when butterflies fluttered in the gut portending the future
back before we learned to fuck the way movie stars taught us:
well lit, in focus, every inch of skin captured center frame,
each retelling revealing more secrets than the last
until I could quote your inches from exposition to ending credits
even now, I can chart your body, knee to nape, lip to clit
like a family farm a man spent 90 years 
getting ready to be buried in

your blustering winds do not make you a hurricane
you are not Salamis nor Trafalgar
and this is no “I miss you” poem
because I do not miss you

no one misses fatal car accidents
we were a slow-motion rollover 
ejecting victims through the windshield face-first

after you found me inhabiting the suburbs of your heart
fostering your broken parts like they were my own children
you began pushing me out one brutal word at a time
no refugee misses the ethnic cleansing
that leaves them in the wilderness

you left me in the wilderness of this place
in my own chest
surrounded by strange tongues that speak unfamiliar words
like “lover” and “future”
I had found home in the forever changing definitions of “us”
never expecting to be the only one to remember it that way
you were the memory
I was the action
you were the story
I was the author
but you lit the manuscript on fire
drained the blood from all my inkwells
broke pens like fingers
and cut the voice from my throat
leaving me to point at strangers
mouth useless words, knowing they do not understand
you are breathtaking,
but that is no compliment

you hover between regret and unfortunate accident
haunting the stairwells of this cold, empty house
the image of a girl I can see in the television static
around 2 a.m. between the whiskey and the dawn
a tree in winter that I’m not certain is dead or dormant

this began “I miss you,”
this will end with, “I survived you”but we are still somewhere else
a wounded diver in shark-infested waters
and I cannot see the shore
we are the firing squad bullet between rifle and let justice be done
a hand grenade frozen beautiful in a starburst
before shrapnel turns a dreamer
into a dying, wounded animal

This Began With "I Miss You"

Somewhere between midnights and the dawn,
in the shadows of dreams
old lovers slink into the caverns of my mind
for one-way trips through memories
reminding skin of its old acrobatics
through daylight repetitions
they come as if to see a dying friend
say final words, then bid adieu
and slip out before sunrise

after their emigrations
but before daybreak shutters open my eyes
I find you there, pressing palms to palms
as if you had always remained alongside watching
like an unnoticed scarf
keeping warm my throat to speak words
only you and I know in secret
from then until dawn
I find you have taken all the heroines' places
usurped the leads' roles
as if they were your prequels
just understudies filling seats
while waiting for the star player who was stuck in traffic

there, behind corneas, in the cathedral concavity
we rise upon the stage to play parts
in the fictions that dreams explore
your embrace is no longer forgotten
but repeated karmically as I slouch toward a nirvana
that will wake me at dawn
to the world of ice and steel and lies
with you, I would rather repeat my sins indefinitely
curse off enlightenment for a Bodhisattva
stay entranced for years horizontal and convalescent
ignoring flesh for ether
in a place where our bodies still match puzzle-perfectly
where the world is beholden to dreamers' whims
and your departure is remembered only as theory
I would stay unconscious beneath covers
until starvation or paramedics would extricate me
but the day is a persistent kidnapper
pulling me too soon from the visions of you

with our distance,
you are a disembodied voice
sound waves from a pocket toy
that rings to declare your impending,
leaving me afterward with the longing
to disassemble your components
into 1s and 0s,
transmit you through fiber optics and stationary satellites
and reform you in my living room,

but when the midnights come
and I climb beneath satin sheets
only brevity and steady breathing hinder your return
there, where all the best parts of me
try to remember all the parts of you,
you return unbroken, renewed
to bring me back to you,
the embodiment of joy
who once wore a girl's skin
and shared my arms

when all the world is only imaginary
I yearn for the moments I still have there
ache to make the dreams last longer each time
to keep your absence from its profound loneliness
when dawn wakes me to your vacancy
but the night offers another chance
even if only in my own fictions
to bring you back where you belong 

Somewhere Between Midnights and the Dawn

Seven years of solitude
one-night stands
and last names lost to the wind
I wrote them in chronological order
carved their names in the sand
rewrote our mythologies
into my own fictions
to win 10s from strangers who preferred verses
rather than the cut and dry facts of thrusting hips
and white lies to strip cotton from our skins
before clothing ourselves in dawn-lit shame
of till-we-meet-agains

I found her literally in my own back yard
spreading dandelions along her path
on highways and backcountry roads
from the tundra to Sonora
fallen into disuse by travelers —
save Kerouac scholars

she called herself a hobo,
always homeward bound
but yet to find a doorstep to call her own
she came to kiss the red from the rocks
paint her lips with this Martian dust
swirl pirouettes in the vortices
verify that stars here match home
and chase down crash-landed aliens
looking for a one-way trip home to Perseus

she broke me open like an egg
scrambled my contents with her garlic smile
smothered in maple leaf syrup
and salted to taste

she coaxed herself inside
to better hear the word
by smiths more crafted than me
pressed skin to skin
and melted my insides into cheddar
smothered the sheets
in her unrepentant smiles

she is joy
unpasteurized, caffeine-free, antioxidant-rich
joy
if it could drip from its source
sculpt itself into flesh and skin and bones
camber its soft exterior into curves
tender to trepid fingertips
hesitant to brush capsulated ebullience
lest it evanesce into vapor
like the morning fog
she zipped herself up behind a smile
radiant as auroras
to stay warm in the Yukon

we knew from the first kiss
the impending expiration date
I could only hold her so long
before wanderlust reignited her blood
pumped visions of highway sunsets into her aorta
pulled her sticky sunrise from my bed
I held tightly to dreams
that I would foresee us waking unshared unemptied
in the decades to come
but behind shuttered eyes
one loses the path of footsteps
roads meander as they must
not as we desire
and mountains have yet to yield to men

we were doomed to end
from the first morning we shared
each time we pressed hips and lips
I tried to capture the details
with scientific precision
to reconstruct the crime scene of her illegal emigration
from the homeland I built
she could have packed and parted a thousand times
without a second thought
or smile in a stranger's rearview
after her outstretched thumb purchased passage
yet I found her bedecked in my socks
or shirts or shorts and boxers after a time

I would have shed my skin to keep her warm
if it would have delayed her departure
a few hours more

she left me thrice:
to smell the stories wafting on Diné desert
see tors resistant to harassing winds —
play in a park where symbols of peace
were even written on the stones —
pioneer the plateau seared asunder
by patient waters that still run wild
too oblivious to laugh at our cages
knowing that they too will one day fall
Ozymandias could not conquer the sands
Hoover cannot break the canyon's will
though the crest once offered us a view
down to the moonlit sea
all endeavors come to an end
despite the glory
of their lofty dedications

each time, the gravity of our weight
pulled orbits back to the same ellipse
we shared atmospheres
and now with her light years across the plain
it's harder to breathe the air
before I knew her grace

in the winter nights
with the rest of the house bursting with life
lovers pressing tender touches
uncaring of audiences
friends rehashing old wounds reopened
musicians repeating tunes remembered by fingertips alone
I long for her pride
I languish for the smell of her with days trapped in hair
I yearn for the exhilaration of her tender brilliance
dropping falling stars into my exosphere
to scar the surface
leaving us again in the naked ecstasy
when the world faded away
leaving us alone with our uninhibited vices

the nights seem colder
and my limbs never warm enough to sleep through the night
awake with dreams unremembered
each one leaves a passport of her absence
the way she alone could seem to fill the bed with her laughter
as I left her in the mornings

our last day
remains wickedly vivid
how I longed to break my fingers and toes
to render my hands unable to labor
feet unable to leave her
knowing that as the door closed
when I next returned
she'd not greet me with outstretched arms
and leopardic leaps to pin me beneath her passions

I couldn’t have loved her better
goodbye was always on our lips
but when the last one came
it broke me down the middle

in the center of my city
tourists who came for millennial stones unbroken
saw us cleave together our last moments
and for the first time, she shed tears
broke open her dam
to cleave the street beneath us in two
in a way only the canyons know
the red rocks above trembled in dread
conjuring that winds and creeks had taken their toll
but she, unleashed, could finally break them into red sand
washing them like blood into the seas

there, at a crossroads I could recreate from memory
she said I would not cross the road with her
I was unable to follow
could not take her trek homeward bound
because I had never been
she carried my heart across the asphalt lanes
tied up in her pack
beneath snacks for the road
betwixt books and rolled socks
she carried it in secret
which I knew as she walked away from me
along a stretch of road
that seemed to widen for miles
until I lost her behind what could have been her next ride
or mere passersby
stained with her goodbyes
I watched until she was vapor and wind
red hat and pack
and then a mirage
as if she never was
but the hollow in my chest
beat her empty echoes with thumps in rhythm to her wandering footsteps
I send out platoons of foxes to find her
seek her out even in cities unknown to their habits
hoping their spying slyness
can catch her eye

now I seek out hitchhikers
the way addicts itch for a fix
I want to ask if they've seen her
if I can glean some knowledge of her whereabouts
and if they haven't yet
if they would pass on a message in my absence:
when the first winter breeze
blows in from the north
I will strip naked wherever I am
in the midst of Times Square,
the hollow of empty woods
or in my own living room
let her cold kisses caress all my sharp curves
feel her twirl around all my edges
inhale her joy so deeply
the atmosphere in my lungs turn to ice
all my pores will rise into goosebumps
to return her ten-thousand kisses
send all my silent words northward to find her
along whatever road she finds herself
wrap the embrace of breath around her
so she feels my arms again
even if just once more
even if just in dreams
even if she never knows

Seven Years of Solitude

“Secretariat”
by Christopher Fox Graham,
with thanks to Wayne Henry

my daughter has a big heart
as big as a horse

she was born that way
you can see it in the way she hugs
the way she waves to anyone
the way she sprints at full gallop
when she sees her mother or me at the end of a day
the way she says “bye bye”
bringing joy to strangers who may never see her again
they may not
because my daughter has a big heart
she was born that way

we knew we were going to love her
from the moment we knew we were pregnant
she was going to have a big heart
full of love
because we were full of love for her
we wanted nothing more than to have a daughter
half her mother, half me
we could raise in the way we were not
free of judgment
or useless tradition
a wild horse,
untamed and untamable

in the days before she was born
we found she had big heart
too big
we heard an unusual murmur
caught by the ultrasound
a hiccup of the heart
too big for her tiny chest
larger than it should be
anterior ventricular aneurysm
a bulge where the muscles of a valve
had not yet formed
not strong enough to beat her little heart on its own
and maybe would never

my wife could carry her to term but after that
the labor could rupture her heart
could tear it after birth
or it could gallop like a thoroughbred then

     … just stop …

for no reason and not beat again

six days in intensive care,
six hours in an MRI
we took her home
a probe attached to her chest we had to change daily
when we put her down to sleep
we were not sure if she would wake up
we checked on her hourly
to make sure she was still alive
still breathing,
her heart beating like the hooves of a Clydesdale

but this creature,
half me,
half her mother
was full of love
though she did not know the word
but she taught it to us
our hearts swelled to carry the burden hers could not

she has a big heart
as big as a horse
she was born that way
and she has survived
because she has a big heart like Secretariat
whose mighty heart
was three times the size of a normal horse

it should have killed him
all that passion and desire to win,
to race
to succeed,
pushing him down the track
around the curves

at the Kentucky Derby
each leg faster than the last
winning in under two minutes

at Preakness
where he started last and leaped ahead so famously
they made a statute of him doing it

at Belmont Stakes
where he won the Triple Crown by 31 lengths
the widest margin in racing history

he had a big heart
he was born that way
he did not stop and she will not
because she has a big heart
she was born that way

so if you meet her
and she waves, wave back
say bye when she leaves
because you may not see her again
and not because she's gone
but because she’s so far down the track
so far ahead of us
you cannot see her
just the dust she's left behind
get to know her now,
because I don't know where she's headed
but she'll arrive
long before the rest of us
because my daughter
she has a big heart
she was born that way

FoxThePoet

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